Limit of Fury
by LeviTamm
Summary: After being kidnapped by his uncle, and watching his father die in front of him, he is promptly dumped in the wild to fend for himself. Given no explanation, and filled with a power he doesn't understand, and can't control, Gohan has to prepare himself to defend the Earth. A slightly darker take on a familiar story. May contain OOC characters. Slight AU. Rated M for violence.
1. Chapter 1: A New Threat

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Hello, whoever is reading this. This is the first chapter of the first story I write, and am completely new to this site at the time I write this. As a result it might take some time for me to answer any questions I may be asked, if I'm asked any, while I try to learn how to use all of the features this site provides. I have no idea what to really expect by posting this story, so I expect nothing from you. Like or review if you feel like it, flame if you want to, or do nothing at all. No matter what happens after posting this will end up being a learning experience for me.**

 **I have a plot for the most part worked out for this story, at least for the first arc. This plot is based around a significant change that happens early on that will likely cause characters to turn out vastly different from their canon counterparts. If that isn't your thing, this story probably isn't for you.**

 **Also, I am a University student who has a job with no regular hours. Sometimes, I am busy for weeks on end, other times, I can have entire weeks off with nothing to do. This means I have** **no update schedule at this time.** **This may change in the future depending on what comes of this story. In any case, I have every intention of completing this story.**

 **Hopefully, my writing style and skill level is enough to give what I think is a good idea for a story, justice.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter was re-written on 2017-02-09. Hopefully it was made a little less _cringey_.**

* * *

He was taken out of his momentary trance when yet _another_ scream pierced the hull of the ship.

It made him _cringe_.

There was so much _pain_ in it, that he could almost feel it himself.

As his uncle brought his foot down again and again, his dad's voice became _saturated_ with it.

It was hard to see from where he was, but not impossible. The pod he was in was _dark_ , its only window was fogged, tinted and blurry, and the _whole_ ship was planted at the bottom of an _impact_ crater, but he could manage just fine.

His eyesight had always been good. So had his _hearing_ for that matter…

As a result, he could _easily_ make out what was happening at the edge of the crater some thirty meters away.

What he saw tore him apart. He couldn't even _begin_ to make sense of his emotions anymore. Anger, hatred, fear, confusion, denial… guilt.

It was a _first_ for him.

He couldn't remember a time when he had experienced such a crippling _pressure_ in his chest. On his _heart_.

The sudden storm of emotions felt like it was literally _ramming_ his heart down into his stomach.

He had come across the expression _"_ _my heart dropped,"_ in a handful of his novels before, as an emotional descriptor…

 _Now_ he knew what it meant…

Minutes ago, the valley around him was the site of the most _intense_ , _violent_ , _high_ speed battle that the world had probably _ever_ seen.

Shock-waves had shaken the valley at every strike.

Ki blasts _raged_ through the skies. Wiping out _everything_ in their paths in blinding flashes of light.

The exchange was _incredible_ , yet had lasted only _minutes_.

And he had felt _every_ second of it all, through the hull.

The vibrations, the shockwaves, the explosions…

The sheer _intensity_ of it really shouldn't have surprised him.

It was almost _expected_ , now that he thought about it, when the strongest two fighters on the planet battle an otherworldly being to the death with everything on the line.

Goku… his dad, the strongest there ever was, and Piccolo, his dad's heated rival and nemesis, a being whose name alone struck fear into the hearts of _all_ who heard it, had banded together due to this threat.

This _one_ man was enough to make his dad, and his dad's most hated enemy, band together and form an alliance.

It was an _unthinkable_ event. He had never even _entertained_ the idea of something like that happening before. Not even hypothetically. He had _heard_ some of the stories after all…

There was supposed to be no _way_ that those two would _ever_ team up under any circumstances. They _hated_ each other.

But they had.

And despite _everything_ , it was nowhere _near_ enough.

This _monster_ , his uncle from space if he had heard right, tore the two of them apart with ease. Now there he sat, helplessly trapped in a spaceship, watching as this _monster_ crushed the life out of his father.

 _'This can't be real…'_ Gohan heard some distant part of his mind whisper as he took in the horrific scene in front of him.

His uncle was shouting something at his dad now, amidst his insane laughter, but he couldn't make out the specific words. Tears were still flowing freely down his face and his body was _trembling_ , all while his mind tried to rationalize what was in front of him.

He _sniffled_.

 _'It's a nightmare, that's it… it has to be.'_ He had had some pretty vivid ones before. But not like _this_ …

He didn't know what to think anymore.

He just wanted to go home.

He wanted to wake up, and find everything back to normal.

He wanted to see his dad on his feet again, perfectly fine and then everything could go back to how it was.

Another agonized scream tore through the air and reached his ears, prompting him to let out another whimper and cover his ears.

It didn't help any.

The screams continued to make their way to his ears despite his best efforts.

 _'I'm sorry daddy…'_

And he was.

Because it was _his_ fault. His dad was here because of him. All because he had allowed himself to be kidnapped earlier. He had done something stupid when he shouldn't have. He knew he should have listened to his dad, but he didn't, and now…

He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. Every agonized scream that made its way to his ears left a scar and tore him apart a little more on the inside. He _wanted_ to deny what was happening in front of him. He _tried_ to.

But every passing moment was like a _slap_ in the face, telling him that things weren't that simple.

 _'It's all my fault,'_ he told himself again. It just _echoed_ through his head over and over again. Bouncing off the insides of his skull…

He _hated_ himself. All that guilt had _quickly_ led to self-loathing, and hatred. There were a whole _slew_ of emotions running through him now. And he didn't know what to do. What _could_ he even do? He was helpless…

So, he just… continued to watch in shock as his uncle stomped on his father's chest yet again, eliciting another agonized, pain-filled cry.

He _hated_ himself for being so weak.

He _hated_ that his father was at deaths door, and that he had decided to come after him. It would have been better if he _hadn't_ , then he wouldn't be out there in this situation. _He_ was the one that got himself kidnapped for being stupid, not _him_. His dad shouldn't be there.

At this point, he really just wished that his dad had never come after him. _Anything_ was better than hearing his dad in so much _pain_.

He looked again at his uncle standing at the edge of the crater, standing over his father, laughing with glee.

His eyes narrowed and something almost audibly _snapped_ inside him.

 _'But most of all I hate_ you _…'_

Something started _building_ inside him. A white hot fury unlike anything he had ever felt. 'You're _the one that started this… You're the one who brought me here, that made me feel so helpless…'_

It continued to build.

It was _sheer_ hatred. Hatred at himself, hatred at the situation, at the whole _world_ for allowing this to happen. It felt like he was going to _explode_.

But it just kept _building_.

Tears continued to stream out of his eyes, blurring his vision to the point that he couldn't even _see_ … So he squeezed them shut.

He heard himself release a low growl, and he finally stood up.

'You're _the one that hurt my daddy…'_

He glared with all of his hate at his uncle Radditz.

He couldn't watch this anymore. No, he _wouldn't_ … he absolutely _refused_ to.

His rage _peaked_ and a blue aura started to appear around him, engulfing him in _so much power_.

 _'How dare you… How dare you hurt him…'_

The spacecraft began to _crack_ from the massive rise in energy.

His rage plateaued at a level where he couldn't contain it.

The edges of his vision began to fade giving him an extreme case of _tunnel_ vision.

He took one final hate-filled look outside and idly noticed that that _monster_ was looking _his_ way with a seemingly surprised expression on his face.

That _monster_ hurt his dad.

 _'I'll… I'll…'_

He scrunched his eyes shut and tensed in raw _fury_.

He hit his limit.

The _monster_ deserved to die.

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

He screamed it at the top of his lungs. His rage broke free focused on the single target in front of him.

It was his last coherent thought before the _world_ around him exploded and he lost himself to his rage.

* * *

 ** _Moments Earlier – Outside_**

Radditz was _elated_ and it showed.

He had an insane, ear-to-ear grin plastered across his face and was in a fit of maniacal laughter.

How long had it been since he was able to have _this_ much fun?

Beating on his worthless brother, hearing those screams, it was like music.

Dispatching his brother and the green man had been _cake_. The fight had been almost _disappointing_ if he were telling the truth.

If it could even be _called_ a fight.

But none of that mattered now, he was having _fun_. The green man was missing an arm and hanging back recuperating, and now he was making a game of breaking each one of his brother's ribs individually, one at a time.

 _SNAP!_

 _'Ah, there goes another one!'_ Radditz thought to himself in glee while his brother screamed in agonizing pain.

 _'That's what happens to people who try to grab my tail.'_ He idly thought, remembering the moment not _two_ minutes ago where _these_ two had tried to do exactly _that_ , and he _almost_ had a real chance of losing the fight.

"You're a fool Kakarot. Did you _really_ think either you or your friend had a chance against me? I'm _far_ stronger than you could _ever_ hope to be!" Radditz laughed as he ground his boot into one of the last _in_ -tact ribs his brother had left.

Goku stiffened in agony. "G–Gohan…" He spoke, weakly. The pain-filled look on his face only caused Radditz to laugh out loud again.

"You're much too soft to be a saiyan. You're a failure as a warrior, and now a failure as a father! I originally wanted you to join up with my team, but seeing as you're _much_ too pathetic for such an honour, I might just settle for taking your _brat_ instead!" Seeing the widening of his brothers eyes into a mixture of fear and hatred only caused Radditz to laugh even harder.

It looked for a moment like his brother was going to say something to _that_ remark, but a boot to his last in-tact rib cut it off before it could be said.

 _SNAP!_

There was no scream this time, probably only due to a lack of air in Goku's lungs at this point however.

Radditz took a moment to glance at the green man a little ways away to ensure he didn't have any more tricks up his sleeve. He had gotten _careless_ before, and he would be willing to admit to himself that these two did show some neat tricks, some of which that had actually caught him _off_ guard.

He was still going to _kill_ them though.

In fact, _now_ might be a good time. He was beginning to get bored now that his brother was out of ribs. It was time to wrap up.

Judging by the intense, yet defeated look on the green man's face, it seemed he was indeed out of tricks.

 _'Good.'_ He thought to himself with a smile. He glanced back at his brother. Still lying in the dirt like a worm, writhing in pain.

Radditz _grimaced_. His brother wasn't good enough for what he was about to receive. _'Oh well…'_

"Well little brother, the time has come for you to die. Though you are unworthy of it, I will give you a death fit for a true saiyan warrior." He began to raise his hand and a blue aura began to emanate from it. Radditz savored the slow widening of his brothers fear-pain-and-hate-filled-eyes.

 _Suddenly_ , his scouter picked up a power level that went off the charts. He canceled his attack, and looked towards the source with widened eyes. It was coming from his spaceship.

 _'Impossible! A power level of 810… and it's still going up!'_ The spaceship cracked and Radditz lowered his gaze to the window of the ship. There was a moment where time seemed to stop, and his eyes met with the eyes of his prisoner. His saiyan eyes clearly picked up the unchecked fury in the kid's eyes.

 _'Power level of 1500… no way can a child be that strong!'_ He thought to himself as his eyes widened. An intense blue light began emanating from the pod that was only increasing in its intensity.

"WHAT TH-…" He managed to get out before he was cut off.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" He heard the kid scream from the pod in an unexpectedly powerful voice, before the pod abruptly _exploded_ in a flash of light that _shook_ the valley.

* * *

 ** _Outside – With Piccolo_**

Today had been a bad day that only seemed to get worse.

His _arm_ was gone for starters, something that he _could_ fix given a few spare moments…

Moments that he clearly _didn't_ have.

He was _forced_ to swallow his pride and team up with his most _hated_ enemy to fight an impossibly strong fighter bent on destroying the world.

And _now,_ despite _all_ of their best efforts, they _still_ couldn't win.

Goku was in rough shape, something he had _mixed_ feelings about.

On _one_ hand his most hated rival was probably going to die, on the _other,_ it wasn't _him_ who would get to do it.

 _He_ was probably next himself as well, so there was that too. He couldn't imagine this guy would let him go after everything that's happened, and that _last_ attack of his took _everything_ he had. He no longer had the strength to either fight _or_ retreat. And even if he did, this guy was fast enough to catch him _long_ before he got away.

He held onto what was left of his arm and looked down at the ground, his mind whirling trying to come up with something, _anything_ , to get out of this situation.

A blue light caught his eye and broke off his thoughts.

Looking down at the saiyan spaceship revealed the source.

Piccolo's eyes _widened_ as he sensed the power emanating off the kid inside. It was incredible.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" He heard the child scream before the pod _exploded_ in a flash of blinding blue light.

What happened next was something _so_ far beyond anything that he expected that it would _forever_ be ingrained into his memory.

The kid blew out of the crater at an impossible speed before landing a few meters away from the saiyan.

The kid _landed_ , _spun_ on a dime and _launched_ himself at the saiyan like a _rocket_.

"LEAVE MY DAD ALONE!"

There was no time for _anyone_ to react. There was a _streak_ of light before the kid crash landed on the other side of the saiyan, _unconscious_.

He couldn't even clearly see what had happened, but looking back at the saiyan, it became _clear_.

The saiyan's right arm was _missing_ , along with almost a third of his torso. His right shoulder and most of his chest was missing. His formerly ankle length black spiky hair was almost gone completely, and he was _soaked_ in blood.

The kid had punched a hole straight _through_ him.

It took only a second or two before the saiyan fell onto his back, vomiting out blood.

The wound wasn't even immediately fatal, despite its appearance. It'd take a few moments by the looks of things before he bled out completely, moments that _had_ to be filled with pain beyond understanding.

It took a few moments for him to remove his jaw from the floor and regain his composure. When he did, he slowly walked over to where the fallen saiyan was all the while trying to process the impossible event that had just occurred.

The saiyan was lying down next to Goku coughing on his own blood.

"Killed by a child…" The saiyan rasped out, before descending into a coughing fit. He laughed weakly and managed to take a glance at Goku, who was in almost as bad of shape. "At least my failure of a brother will be coming with me…"

"Don't count on it." Piccolo spoke up. The saiyan glared back up at him.

"He'll be up and running again in a few weeks at the most." He grinned in amusement. Seeing the guy that had almost killed him, and caused him to have to swallow his pride dying in the dirt brought a sort of vindictive pleasure.

"What? Tell. Me. How…" The saiyan spoke with as much defiance as he could in his position.

"Gladly." Piccolo spoke with conviction, not seeing a problem in explaining. "On this planet we have something called Dragonballs. If you gather all seven of them together you can get any one wish granted. Goku's friends will have him wished back in no time."

He narrowed his eyes at the saiyan. "It's Goku who will have the last laugh."

The saiyan let out a growl, and _smirked_. "No. I'm afraid your wrong green man."

 _That_ got Piccolo's attention.

"This device on my face… it's a transmitter. My two allies heard every word. They'll come. I know they will." At this point he was having trouble getting the words out. "They'll want to make a wish."

"How long?" A new voice entered the conversation. Glancing in its direction, he determined it to be Goku, who was barely clinging to life.

"How long will it take them to get here?" He continued, _weakly_.

"One year…" The saiyan began laughing despite the obvious pain it caused him. "And the funny thing is… they're _much_ stronger than me."

"Stronger…" Piccolo spoke, with no small amount of fear.

It would seem some of his plans would have to change. A situation in which Goku, and _this_ saiyan were out of the picture would have been _perfect_. All he would have had to do was eliminate the kid, who was _unconscious_ a little ways away, and there would have been _nobody_ left in his way. The world would have been his. _Two_ more saiyans, _stronger_ than this one, the one who made him look like a joke… changed _everything_.

"What's with the _look_ green man?" The saiyan spoke for the last time. "We can't _all_ have the last laugh…" He trailed off as he breathed his last.

Piccolo _glared_ at the saiyan's corpse while processing everything he had just learned.

After a few moments, he noticed that the clearing was _dead_ silent. Glancing over at Goku he quickly discovered why. At some point during that last conversation he slipped away. Right on cue, Goku's body disappeared signifying that _Kami_ had some sort of purpose for him in the other world.

 _'Probably training of some sort…'_ He idly thought to himself. _'Speaking of which…'_ He glanced over at the kid still lying in the dirt, asleep, and thought up a plan that was insane enough to actually have a shot of working.

A plan that was so far against his nature he almost immediately dismissed it.

Kami would _send_ someone to tell Goku's friends about the saiyans if he didn't do it himself. Leaving them in the dark wasn't an option, as appealing as it would have been seeing them all line up to die at the hands of the two saiyans for not _knowing_ to prepare for them a year in advance.

Goku was probably going to receive special training in the other world that would make him stronger than ever. His friends would wish him back to life in a year's time to help with the two saiyans on their way here. During the wait, they would no doubt be training harder than ever as well. Maybe even with Kami himself.

 _'That's a lot of potential enemies in the future…'_ If he wanted to defeat these _new_ threats, and _still_ be strong enough to face off against any of Goku's friends that survive the impending attack, he would have to train like never before to stay ahead. Perhaps even gain an ally, as much as that thought _bothered_ him.

 _'If I were to train the_ kid _…'_ He thought to himself, still glaring at the unconscious half-saiyan.

Helping out any _spawn_ of Goku was not something he would ever normally do, but setting aside the future attack for a moment, this situation was almost _perfect_.

A child with the amount of power this one just displayed had near _unlimited_ potential. He was still a child, no older than five years old. Meaning he was mouldable, now _especially_ since he just saw his dad get killed. _That_ would traumatize him like nothing else.

This kid could either be a _huge_ problem down the line, or a valuable subordinate if he played his cards right. A wild card that could change everything.

Or, he could _kill_ the kid now and take his chances with the future. _That_ would no doubt provoke Goku's friends into attacking him, which means he'd have to _kill_ them, leaving less people to fight the saiyans later. Not to mention they could just wish the kid back to life _later_ with the Dragonballs…

Thinking it over one more time, he made his decision.

He would keep the kid alive for now, and he would try to mold him into a perfect subordinate. If at _any_ time the kid proved to be too much of a threat, he could always take him out before he mastered that _power_ of his.

He wouldn't place all of his hopes on this either. He would _still_ train himself as hard as he could and _act_ as if the kid would end up being a liability down the line.

If he gained the kid's loyalty, _great_ , if not, he'd take him out and still wouldn't lose anything.

As he started walking over to the kid he heard the sound of an aircraft flying towards them.

 _'Goku's friends probably. They probably felt Goku's life force disappear a few moments ago so they probably know what happened to an extent.'_

He reached down and picked up the kid by the back of his shirt, and glanced up at the approaching plane. _'This kid has more power than any of us currently. I'll make sure he's ready for the saiyans.'_

Before the plane could land Piccolo flew into the air with the kid in tow, and took off.

He'd regenerate his missing arm later, and he had no plans of asking for _permission_ to take Goku's son in for training.

These _saiyans_ were a threat to the Earth. He had every intention of conquering it himself one day, so he'd defend it for now.

Once this was _over_ though, all bets were _off_.

And who knows, he might even end up with a loyal apprentice out of this.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**


	2. Chapter 2: Piccolo's Plan

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Piccolo stood at the edge of a pond with an annoyed scowl on his face. He had been flying around for a while, searching for a location that was far from any civilization, and most importantly, far from the sensing range of any of Goku's friends. He had found the perfect spot for what he had planned, yet despite flying for a good three hours, the kid under his newly regenerated arm was still fast asleep.

"Wake up you little brat." He was quickly becoming annoyed with the situation.

No response.

His gaze lowered, and he raised the still-sleeping child up to eye-level.

Hearing the kids quiet snores sent him over the edge. He wasn't in the mood for this. Not after everything that happened today.

After glaring daggers at the kid for a moment or two, he turned and found himself glaring at the pond in front of him.

After transferring his glare between the kid in his hand, and the pond one final time, he found himself smirking.

It would have been obvious to anyone watching, what he was about to do.

* * *

He couldn't breathe. The freezing-cold liquid sensation brought Gohan back to consciousness immediately, running through his entire body like a shock.

After thrashing wildly for a moment or two, and breathing in a mouthful of water, he found himself on his knees in a shallow pond. His chest and head just breached the surface of it, and he was coughing madly, trying desperately to replace the water in his lungs with air.

Realizing that the edge of the pond was only a meter or two in front of him, he desperately crawled his way over to it, coughing and panting all the while.

After crawling onto dry land fully, he had to take a minute to finish depleting the water in his lungs before he could even begin to question why he woke up at the bottom of a pond.

Getting a few, good breaths of air, He found his mind reeling with questions.

Where was he? What happened? Why was he in a pond? When did he fall asleep? He knew literally nothing about his situation, which caused him to panic.

He looked around wildly, hoping to catch a glimpse of his dad, or anyone for that matter.

What he found turned his blood cold.

Piccolo, his dad's greatest and strongest enemy was standing a short distance away, looking right at him, and he looked mad.

His eyes filled with tears, and he started to cry out in fear. Where was his dad? The big and mean Piccolo had him! He needed his daddy to come rescue him, but he couldn't see him anywhere!

"SHUT UP!" Piccolo's shout froze him to the spot out of fear. "I CAN'T TAKE THAT NOISE ANYMORE!"

He let out a few sniffles but managed to stop crying out loud for the most part, out of sheer terror. He didn't want Piccolo to be any angrier than he already was.

"Good." Piccolo continued. "I'm not going to hurt you unless you do something stupid like start crying again."

Gohan wiped his eyes and took another glance around the area. It was a clearing with huge mountain-like boulders littered throughout, and a forest could be seen way off in the distance. The clearing was silent aside from the wind, and his own silent whimpers.

"Wh- where's my dad?" He asked fearfully, after taking a few moments to calm down. He was cold and wanted to go home.

Piccolo let out a sigh. "Listen to me carefully kid, because I'm only going to explain this once." Gohan managed to shakily climb to his feet, and looked up at Piccolo. Whatever he was about to hear sounded really important. Maybe he knew where his dad was!

"Earlier today, your dad and I had to team up to fight against a powerful warrior called a saiyan that was far stronger than either of us. Do you remember what happened?"

He did.

Hearing Piccolo's explanation caused it all to come back at once. His uncle from space grabbing him, seeing his dad come to rescue him with Piccolo, seeing his dad get defeated and crying out in pain…

It made fresh tears come to his eyes. _'Daddy…'_

Abruptly waking up in that pond, and his current situation had made him forget about it all, until now.

"Stop that. I don't want to hear you cry and whine like a spoiled brat." Seeing Piccolo's glare was enough to turn any would-be crying, into much quieter whimpers.

"I-I remember." Gohan sniffled. How could he ever forget? That battle, everything that happened, would probably be the subject of his nightmares for a good while.

"Good." Piccolo continued. "Do you remember what happened to the saiyan that your dad and I were fighting?"

Thinking back, he remembered seeing his dad get hurt by that saiyan, and then… nothing. He woke up in the pond after, and now he was here.

His mind raced. Where was his dad? What happened? Was he ok? Panic and worry were the only things he knew in that moment.

"No! What happened? What happened to my dad?" He had to know.

"Your dad is dead."

The words stopped him cold. It felt like his heart stopped. "What?" He asked out of reflex, his voice full of confusion. There was no way that could be right. His dad was the strongest there was. There wasn't anyone capable of beating him, not even Piccolo.

"I said that your dad is dead."

 _'No. That… that can't be…'_ His dad couldn't be gone… but then where was he? Even if his dad was resting somewhere surely he would have sent someone to look after him in the meantime, right? He wouldn't have let Piccolo grab him, right? He looked around the clearing. It couldn't be true. Could it?

Realization hit him all at once, and his heart filled with dread. He wanted to deny it, but at the same time he knew that it had to be true, or at the very least it was incredibly likely given the current situation. It was the only reason that he could think of on why his dad, or one of his friends, wouldn't be here with him now. His dad wouldn't allow someone as mean as Piccolo to grab him, not in a million years. If his dad didn't let his mean brother take him without a fight, he definitely wouldn't let his evil rival do so unless he was… unless he was…

 _'No… daddy…'_ He felt more tears threaten to break free, and in a matter of moments he was letting out all of his grief, frustration, and despair in another fit of sobbing.

His dad was _gone_ , and it was his fault. Every time that he was ever sad, or upset, it was always his dad that cheered him up. Whenever he was stuck, or bored, or his mom made him study for too long, it was always his dad that swooped in and saved the day. Never again would his dad sit beside him while they went out fishing. Never again would his dad take him through a walk in the woods to explore the mountains around their house, or tell him incredible stories of his adventures in the past with all of his friends.

His dad was his constant. The one thing that was always there when he needed him to be. The culmination of everything that he wanted to grow up to be like. But none of that would ever happen again because his dad was -

"SHUT UP!"

Gohan's head snapped back to Piccolo and his eyes widened out of fear. His eyes were still leaking out tears. His train of thought had immediately ground to a halt hearing the anger in Piccolo's voice.

"Your dad was killed by that saiyan because your dad let him!" Gohan's eyes widened further in surprise.

"Your dad had a perfect opportunity to take him out but he decided not to. He showed mercy, and died because of it."

Gohan's mind was whirling. He remembered seeing the fight. Remembered seeing his dad grab his uncle's tail, and his uncle falling to the ground helpless. He recalled the few times in the past where his own tail was either stepped on, grabbed or hit with something, and remembered how painful that was. Piccolo was right. Why had his dad let go?

"Now there are two more saiyans on their way here now, far stronger than the one we just fought." Piccolo continued in a quieter tone. "We need to be ready for them when they get here. Your dad will be back in a years' time after he gets wished back to life with the Dragonballs."

 _'That's right! The Dragonballs can bring my dad back! I almost forgot about them!'_ Gohan thought to himself with unending relief. His dad would be back in no time at all! They just had to gather the magic Dragonballs and ask the dragon!

"You have an incredible power within you that you need to learn how to control. If you don't, when your dad gets back, he will die again. And nobody can be wished back to life twice. The dragon won't allow it." He finished with a serious look.

"But my dad _is_ going to come back though right?" He asked with worry. He knew about the Dragonballs and their restrictions. His dad had told him about them when he was younger.

"Yes. I have no doubt that your dad's friends will wish him back in a year's time. But, whether or not he stays back is up to you."

"What? Why?" The relief at hearing that his dad was going to come back later had completely taken over his thoughts, and he was only just now starting to catch up to what Piccolo was telling him. There were more saiyans on their way here? He had some kind of hidden powers? What was he talking about?

"I have powers? What powers?" He was confused. What was going on? This was all just too much. He didn't know about any hidden power. He was just a kid.

Piccolo smirked a sadistic smirk. "I'll show them to you kid."

What?

Before he knew it, Gohan was flying towards a mountain sized boulder at an insane speed, screaming at the top of his lungs. Piccolo had grabbed him by his head, and threw him at the large rock like a football, with incredible force. One moment he was standing next to Piccolo trying to make sense out of what he had just been told, and the next, he was flying towards a huge mountain-sized rock.

The mountain grew closer and closer before time seemed to slow to a crawl and he knew no more.

* * *

The kid's power was just incredible. Even though he expected it, it still surprised him.

Gohan had been frankly, disappointing. He had expected a lot more from the kid personality-wise. He had thought that being the son of Goku meant that the kid would be a fighter. Not this little crybaby who couldn't do a thing without his dad holding his hand.

His only redeeming quality was that power of his.

Piccolo had determined from the moment the kid woke up and started crying, that he was not apprentice-worthy. At least not yet.

His original plan had been to train the kid as a potential ally in the future. He was going to use the impending saiyan invasion as a way to thin out the Earth's defences. Goku and his friends would no doubt meet the saiyans in combat when they got here, in order to defend the planet. They'd do their part, some of them would likely get killed, and then he'd step in to finish off the weakened saiyans with the kid at his side.

With the saiyans gone, and the earth's defenses weakened, he could finally achieve what his father never could.

World domination.

He had been planning to strike in a few more years after he was certain that he had finally surpassed Goku, but this situation with the saiyans greatly accelerated things.

He was already leagues above everyone else on this planet in terms of strength. All of Goku's friends, despite being far stronger than all other martial artists on the planet, were no match for his own strength. Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, even his other half, Kami… he was confident that he would be able to fight all of them off at once and win.

He had nearly done so five years ago at the last world martial arts tournament, and he had trained like mad since then. Goku was the only one who could match him on _this_ planet.

This difference in strength would still likely exist in a year, after they had all gone through with their respective super-intense training. As such, he expected Goku to either be as strong as himself, or maybe even slightly stronger in a year.

He expected the kid to be even stronger than that. Especially with that hidden power of his, and the training he had originally planned for him.

Goku would be weak, or dead, from fighting the saiyans. If the saiyans were still alive at that point meaning Goku had failed, he'd point the kid in their direction to finish the job. If the kid seemed like a liability at that point, he'd take him out while he was recovering from the fight. The same applied to all of Goku's friends, and _especially_ Goku himself.

Anyone who survived the fight in a year would be in a weak enough state for him to finish off with ease. All that he would have to do is make sure he arrived at the battlefield after the main fight was over and everyone was either weak, or dead. If he had the kid's loyalty at that time, he'd be a useful subordinate in the future, if not, he'd take him out when he was weakened and unprepared.

All of this depended on Gohan gaining control of his hidden power though, or at least, it would be so much easier if that were the case.

His plan would work either way, the kid being there just made it simple. He was like insurance. If the saiyans that arrived were stronger than even he anticipated, strong enough to fight everyone at once and win, then the kid might just tip the scales in his favor.

He was wrong about him though. The kid wasn't a fighter who could be trained. He was just a child with hidden abilities that he didn't even know about. He couldn't be trained. Not yet at least.

The kid needed to grow up first, and it just so happened that he had a plan to do exactly that.

He had taken a gamble, throwing the kid like that. He figured that his power would only show itself when the kid was in mortal danger.

He was right, judging by the massive crater that seemed to stretch out for miles. The mountain was gone completely, along with everything behind it as far as the eye could see.

Piccolo himself would have extreme difficulty replicating such a feat.

He walked over to where the kid was sitting. Gohan appeared to be both surprised and confused. It would seem that he had no memory of moments where he used his power to that extent.

"What happened? Did I do this?" Gohan asked as Piccolo finally reached him.

"Yes. That was the power that you used to kill that saiyan earlier." Hopefully, it would be the power he used to kill the other two saiyans later as well.

Gohan seemed surprised at that revelation.

"You were too late however. By the time you intervened, your dad was already beyond saving."

There was a moment of silence as Gohan looked deep in thought, and Piccolo examined the smoking crater in front of them. It was time for him to initiate his plan.

"It's rare for someone as young as you to have such power. That's why I've decided I'm going to teach you how to use it." If he _survives_ first, that is.

"What?" The kid sounded confused and afraid again. It was really starting to get on his nerves.

"You heard me. I'm going to teach you how to use that hidden power of yours so you can be ready to fight against the incoming saiyans." He has two choices, fight the saiyans or die. It really is that simple.

"What? Why? I'm too young to fight anyone. I don't know how." The kid's tone practically screamed weakness and fear.

He had a long way to go.

 _'He doesn't know what's at stake here…'_ Piccolo thought to himself. It was time to change that.

"Do you want your family to die? What about your friends? The planet? You?" He has to realize that he doesn't have a choice in this. If he thinks that his friends are depending on him he might just cooperate, and make things a bit easier.

"What? No!"

Piccolo sighed.

"Let me put this simply. You have more power hidden away than I do. You are currently the strongest being on the planet. The best shot we have against the saiyans. If you don't fight, your family will die, your friends will die, this whole planet, everything you have ever known or cared about. It will _all_ die. There will be nobody left alive to use the Dragonballs. All because you didn't want to fight."

 _'He needs to find a reason to fight, in order to be useful in the future. Even if I have to greatly overstate his importance to do it.'_ He concluded in his mind. He glanced over at the kid, who was taking in everything with a fear-filled gaze.

"But maybe you're right. Maybe you don't have what it takes. We're both about to find out." He took a few steps over to his left where a small boulder was conveniently placed, roughly knee-height.

He pointed at it. Concentrating on his Ki, he warped and manipulated it to his will. Magic materialization was a technique that allowed the user to create physical objects from the user's Ki alone. Imagining what he wanted to create, he willed it into existence, draining an infinitesimal amount of his reserves.

There was a bright yellow light for a moment, before it faded, leaving a pristine orange fighting gi, identical to Goku's in everything but the symbol at the back, folded, on top of the boulder. In its place, Piccolo's own symbol was printed.

Next to the folded gi, was a simple long sword in a red and gold sheathe, and a pair of boots that were also identical to Goku's.

He glanced back at the kid, who looked both confused and intrigued.

"Go ahead, take them." He stated, gesturing to the newly formed items.

Gohan looked at the items, before taking a few hesitant steps towards them. He picked the gi up and examined it for a moment, before looking up at Piccolo with confusion.

"You are too weak, and afraid as you are now. I can't teach you anything yet. Not until you can face down those fears and laugh at them. I am not giving you a choice in this. You will either learn how to live on your own, or you will die." With that, he turned and started walking away.

"I have my own training to get to, so if you are alive in six months, I will be back to teach you how to fight." He lightly took off from the ground and started floating into the air.

"What? Where are you going? Don't leave me alone please!" Gohan pleaded, as he started trying to run after Piccolo.

Piccolo turned back towards the kid. He was roughly twenty meters above the ground now, floating silently.

"Survive on your own." He called down to the kid. "That is the first part of your training. Stop depending on other's to solve your problems. All you seem to do when you're in trouble is cry and wait for your dad to come in and save you. You're in the real world now, and your dad isn't here. You can either learn how to depend on yourself and learn how to survive, or sit back and die. This is the path that fate has chosen for you. The sooner you accept it, the better." With that he took off into the distance.

The kid was filled with way too much fear. He was too dependent on others. These six months would hopefully rectify that.

* * *

 **A/N: The first major change to the story occurs very soon. Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	3. Chapter 3: Strength

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

The sun was finally beginning to set on what had to have been the longest day ever. All in one day he had been kidnapped by his insane uncle, watched as his father died in front of him, been kidnapped again by his dad's greatest enemy, and now he was in the wilderness by himself with nothing more than a set of clothes and a sword.

He was currently sitting in the middle of a clearing, still trying to process it all. He had yet to move. He had been sitting in the same spot for a few hours at least, arms hugging his knees to his chest and occasionally shivering due to the wind.

It was starting to get cold.

He had originally hoped that one of his dad's friends would eventually find him if he stayed where he was. He didn't want them to not be able to, if they came looking, because he had wandered off. _'When they come looking.'_ He corrected in his head. They had to be looking for him by now right? They wouldn't just leave him out here right?

Even Piccolo coming back was better than being all by himself.

He let out another shiver. He had draped the clothes that Piccolo had left behind for him over his shoulders like a towel. His original clothes were still slightly wet due to being dropped in the pond earlier, and now that it was starting to cool off, they were starting to get uncomfortable.

His stomach let out a growl. _'Mom should be making dinner by now. I wonder what it'll be…'_

He wanted to see her again. So much. He wanted to cry. He probably would have too, if he could anymore. The emotional roller-coaster that was his day had left him out of tears long ago.

He had expected to hear the sound of his mom's voice several times in the last few hours. Yelling and berating him for his state of dress, and for all the trouble he had caused her. Grounding him, and banning him from doing anything other than study for the next month. She had an infamous temper that even his dad had feared.

It didn't seem so bad thinking about it now. He'd never take her for granted again.

But her voice never came, no matter how much he wanted to hear it. With his dad gone too, he was now truly alone.

He leaned his back against the small boulder behind him and let out a sigh. Looking up, he could tell that the sun had dipped below the horizon completely a while ago. It'd be dark in about an hour or so.

He didn't know what to do. So he continued to wait. Somebody had to be looking for him, all he could do was hope that they came soon.

All he could do was wait for someone to find him.

"You really are pathetic you know that kid?" The voice startled him. He looked around frantically for the source. It sounded familiar, and filled him with terror hearing it. He stared wide-eyed at the source a moment later. It was Piccolo.

"What happened the last time you waited for someone to save you?" Gohan was still too shocked that Piccolo was here, to answer.

"Your dad was killed." He continued. "As far as I'm concerned, you as good as killed him yourself." Gohan winced. That one hurt. It was enough to get him out of his momentary shock at seeing Piccolo again.

His uncle had come to this planet earlier to get his dad Goku for some reason. Something about joining a team was all that he had managed to hear before he had been knocked out. Things only went as bad as they did because he was too weak, and got himself kidnapped. _He_ was his father's greatest weakness. His dad died, not because he was a weak fighter, but because he had a weak son. One that he was willing to die for. Piccolo was right. He was responsible for his father's death.

He looked down at the ground, ashamed.

"The mere act of you being alive, presents another weakness that your father's enemies can target. Is that what you want?" Piccolo asked.

No. Of course it wasn't. This could very well happen again in the future. There were other saiyans on their way here that could use the exact same tactic that his uncle did. Get to Goku, through his weak, and useless son. It wouldn't even matter how strong his dad would be at the time.

Gohan smirked sardonically. How useless and pathetic could a person get? Getting your dad killed on two separate occasions for the same reason. Being too weak.

But what was he supposed to do?

"It's exactly as I said before. You can solve this problem in two ways. Either sit back and die, or fight for your place at your father's side. Either way, you won't be a problem for him anymore."

Fight or die huh? He wasn't a fighter by any means. He had spent his entire life so far with his nose in the books, studying. Because that's what his mom wanted. A scholar, not a fighter.

He was afraid. Maybe it would be best if he just sat back after all. He was almost five at the moment and he had a great family that he wouldn't want to give up for the world. He had a great life. But did he really deserve it?

He had gotten his father killed once. He couldn't bear seeing it happen again.

What was he supposed to do?

"I don't know what's best for you. Nobody else does. Only _you_ do."

He glanced back up at Piccolo. That was the reason why he was taken here, to this place. To decide whether or not he was strong enough to keep going. Strong enough to fight for his place in the world. Strong enough to not be a burden anymore. To be able to stand on his own feet with his own strength.

It was a tall order. Despite how simple he made it seem. His dad and Piccolo were already so strong. They had trained all their lives, and were promptly defeated by a saiyan weaker than the ones coming in a year. He'd have to find a way to get strong enough to fight alongside them in the future. Was that something he could see himself doing? Could it even be done in a year? He was just a kid after all. A weak kid.

What was he supposed to do?

If he decided to fight, he first had to find a way to survive out here after all.

What would his dad want? Was he happy that he had him as a son? Would his dad be sad if he decided this was too much for him to handle, and gave up? Did he have the strength to find a way to survive way out here? Did he even want to?

"If you do decide to quit, are you comfortable knowing that you will greatly lower the chances of the Earth surviving in a year? Your power is vast. If you learn to control it, to depend on it, you could make a huge difference."

Was he really that important? Was the world really counting on him that much? Would his absence in the future really be that noticeable? Truly?

"Did you really think that I would bring _you_ , the son of my greatest enemy of all people, all the way out here if you weren't important? If you didn't have the potential?"

That made him pause.

Piccolo was taking a pretty big risk here if he was really as powerful as he was told. He was the son of Piccolo's greatest enemy, and could very well stop him from taking over the Earth in the future. Yet Piccolo had brought him here. He was even planning on training him.

Maybe he really could do it after all.

What was he supposed to do?

He was supposed to make a decision. He could decide that he wasn't strong enough to live in this world, and leave it by his own accord. Or, he could decide that he was strong enough to fight, and to survive, to see his family again.

He could try his best and go as far as he could. Thinking about it that way, made it a simple decision.

He didn't want his father to die because of him being too weak. Not again. _Never_ again. Letting himself die is just another form of weakness that could just as easily cause his father's death by not being there if his dad ever needed help. If he could really make a difference in the future, then that's what he wanted to do. The only way to ensure that his father wouldn't be killed because of him again, was to get strong enough to prevent it himself.

His dad had protected him for long enough. He wasn't ready to let go of his family. He would fight for them. He would fight for the Earth, and he would fight for his place in it.

He would find a way to _live_.

He glanced back up at Piccolo, to see that he had a smirk on his face. Piccolo walked towards his still-sitting form. When he finally reached him, Piccolo extended his arm for him to take.

After everything that happened, he was finally ready.

* * *

Gohan abruptly jolted awake to find himself still sitting against a rock. He glanced around the clearing only to find that Piccolo wasn't there. The sky was dark now too. He could see the moon. Half of it was blanketed in shadow. It seemed as though he had drifted off, and fallen asleep.

 _'It was all a dream then…'_ He thought to himself. He glanced down at his feet, only to see two large red apples on the ground in front of him. He smiled. _'Maybe not all of it…'_

It didn't matter anyways. Dream or not, he had found what he was looking for. With a smile on his face, he picked up the apples. He placed one in the pocket of his new gi that Piccolo had given him, and took a bite of the other one.

His original clothes had dried for the most part, so he stood up and put on his new gi, over his clothes, to add another layer for warmth. He picked up the still-sheathed sword that was also given to him, and strapped it over his shoulder, before turning and walking towards the forest in the distance.

He had read a good number of books on how to survive in emergencies, and his dad had taken him out for long walks in the woods around his home, so he was comfortable navigating through a forest. He would head there first. It would be a challenge, but he had to believe that he could do it. For himself, for his dad, and for the Earth.

He would survive this.

* * *

Piccolo was confused.

After leaving the kid to fend for himself several hours ago, he had come back to check up on him from a distance.

He had found exactly what he expected from a weakling. The kid cried for a while, and waited around for someone to help him. The kid had yet to leave the clearing he had been dropped in.

The kid made such a pathetic sight that Piccolo had found a pair of apples to tide him over, and dropped them at the kid's feet when he had fallen asleep. It was the only time he intended to intervene.

So he was a bit confused when the kid woke up with a confidence that he had never displayed before, grabbed the apples with a grateful smile, and left the clearing without looking back. He had no idea what had gotten into the kid to cause such a drastic change. It had to have been huge.

He found an amused smile on his face. It was sooner than he expected, which was good news. The kid had finally gotten his act together.

 _'It was about damn time…'_

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	4. Chapter 4: Day One

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Gohan awoke in a bit of a daze. Light from the morning sun had begun streaming through the mouth of the cave and landed directly on his face. Evidently, he had slept like a rock.

Gohan, having finally been roused from his slumber, lazily sat up, and let out an exhausted yawn. Fully opening his eyes, he glanced around the inside of the cave. It was relatively small, having only one entrance, and he estimated it to be about ten meters across, with a relatively low ceiling about two meters high. It was large enough for him to comfortably stand in, but was small enough to retain heat relatively well. The fire he had managed to get going last night was enough to last him through until morning comfortably.

He had lucked out finding this place yesterday. Having finally decided to leave the clearing Piccolo had left him in, he had made for a forest that he noticed in the distance, in search of shelter. After entering the forest, it had only taken about twenty minutes to find this place, despite it being dark outside at the time. He had had more than enough time to get settled in for the night before falling asleep, and despite having some difficulty, he even managed to get a fire going.

He slept _hard_. Which made sense, especially after everything that had happened to him yesterday. But he had come to terms with it all, and his current situation. He had found a reason to survive, and a reason to fight. It had taken an exhausted hallucination to do it, but the method didn't matter to him in the end.

Standing up, he made his way over to the front entrance of the cave. Today was an important day for him after all. He was in an unfamiliar location, alone. He had eaten both of the apples that Piccolo (he assumed it was Piccolo anyways) had given him yesterday and was now without food. That was the first problem that he needed to solve. That, and finding a source of drinkable water. He needed to explore the forest if he wanted to find these things.

He glanced in the direction of the sun and closed his eyes, reveling in the warmth that it brought. He felt like a completely different person than he was yesterday. He didn't feel afraid anymore. He didn't feel like crying anymore. He didn't feel overwhelmed, or confused or angry…. he knew what he had to do.

He had a goal. He wanted to stand alongside his father and the others to help defend the Earth in a year. He was a long way off from it, especially since he had never trained in his life. But he had a power in him, just waiting to be unlocked. He had seen it himself.

He turned back towards the cave and entered it again. He couldn't get too far ahead of himself yet. He couldn't start training until he had gotten used to living out here by himself.

It was pretty warm outside at the moment, and it would only get warmer as the day progressed. Looking down at his clothes, he noticed that he was still wearing both his old clothes, and the gi given to him by Piccolo. Double layers helped him yesterday because it was night time and it was cold. He didn't need two layers during the day.

Deciding that he would wear his new gi, he got changed, and placed his original clothes in the back of the cave. This place was too good to pass up. He would make this place his permanent residence, so he would leave his clothes here for now.

He picked up his sword and strapped it over his shoulder. Hopefully he wouldn't need it until he settled down and started learning how to use it properly, but he would take it just in case. Taking one last glance at the cave, he turned and headed out once more.

Stepping out into the morning sunlight, he started to formulate a plan.

He needed to be careful when he was exploring. If he was going to use this place as his new home, he needed to make sure that he didn't get lost, or lose sight of the path he came from. He would have to familiarize himself with the surroundings as much as possible.

Everything else depended on what was out there. Food and water needed to come first. He glanced around the small clearing in front of the cave, trying to memorize as much as he could, while also trying to pick a direction to start off in.

Finally satisfied with his observation, he started off in his chosen direction. Today was the first day of his training.

He didn't believe for a second that it would be easy.

* * *

He needed a basket.

After a few hours of exploring he had stumbled upon a goldmine of fruits and berries, and promptly stuffed his face. Yesterday, he had only eaten breakfast, and a pair of apples, so he was incredibly hungry.

He finished eating his fill, only to discover that he had barely scratched the surface in the sheer quantity of fruits that were in this section of the forest. Since this place was a good distance away from the cave, he had to take as much fruit back with him as he could, so he needed something to carry it all in, hence the basket.

This was the first food source that he had found since he started exploring, and it was several hours away from his cave. He didn't want to have to come all the way back for every single meal.

He knew how to weave a basket from scratch, he had seen his dad do it once, and he had read a book about it, he just needed to find the basic materials and he would be good to go.

He glanced around the area and found what he needed. Some large sticks, and strips of a specific type of bark that was extremely flexible. The sticks would form the frame of the basket, and the bark would be intricately woven between the sticks to tie them all together.

Gathering his materials, he got to work.

He had found a food source that would last a long time.

When he finally finished weaving his new basket, roughly an hour had passed, and he needed to carry it on his back. It was much too large to carry by hand. It was almost as tall as he was, and was shaped like an inverted pyramid.

After testing it to make sure it wouldn't drop anything inside, he filled it to the brim with a variety of different kinds of fruits and berries, and strapped it to his back.

He quickly ate a small lunch before finally deciding to head out again. He had a few days' worth of food on him now, and he had the directions to this location more or less memorized.

He didn't have to worry about food for a good while. Knowing this, he left the clearing with a smile on his face.

* * *

Finding a water source was a lot easier than finding a food source. He didn't have to keep his eyes fixed on every passing tree and bush. Instead, he just had to listen to the sound of running water.

He heard the river far sooner than he saw it, so he had headed in the direction of the sound.

In front of him now, was a sizeable river that contained fish as big as the ones that lived in the rivers around his house.

Each one was a potential meal themselves.

After taking a long drink, he placed his basket and sword down, and took off his gi. Once he was undressed, aside from his boxers, he dove into the river to try his hand at fishing.

His father had made it look so easy. He would always be in and out, with a fish in hand, in seconds usually.

He had no such skill. He had gone fishing with his father in the past, but he had always depended on his dad to do most of the work. He was on his own out here, and fishing by hand was a lot harder than it looked. It took him almost half an hour to grab a fish, and toss it onto the riverbank. And when he finally did, he was exhausted.

He needed to start getting stronger as soon as he could. Now that he had a feasible food, and water source, as well as a shelter, he could start learning about his power, and get to training.

He got dressed, and planted a large tree branch that he had found, into the mouth of his catch, so that he could carry it back to the cave. He hoisted it over his right shoulder. It was heavy. Especially with his basket full of fruit, and sword on his back as well. It made it extremely difficult to walk and keep his balance.

It wasn't so bad, he supposed. He needed the workout.

After confirming that he had everything that he needed, he trudged back in the direction of his cave.

* * *

By the time he returned to his cave, the sun was beginning to set. He had been out for the entire day.

Shuffling into the cave, he dropped his catch, and his basket, before face planting on the ground, and letting out a groan. He was dead tired. His back and legs were especially sore.

The day had been a long and exhausting one, and it still wasn't over. He still had to cook his dinner.

He collected the remains of his fire from the previous night, and took them out of the cave, before returning with new firewood.

He managed to get a fire going after a few minutes, and started cooking his fish.

All in all, the day had worked out perfectly. The two notable locations that he had found may have been a few hours walk away, but he no longer had to worry about finding food or water for the foreseeable future. Since he knew exactly where the two places were, he could run straight there and make it in much less time.

He had managed to solve two of his most important problems in his first day out here. An achievement that he was proud of.

All that he had to do now was do something about his sleeping situation. The previous night had been uncomfortable to say the least. He had slept on the ground, which was made out of rock. The fire he had lit had kept him warm, but the ground was hard. He needed to make a bed.

While his dinner continued to cook over the fire he headed out into the woods while making sure to remain in ear shot of the cave. He had an idea for a bed design that was simple. He only needed two logs, a bunch of tree branches, and some leaves.

Being in the middle of a forest made it quite easy to find all of these materials. He had to make a few trips between the cave and the forest to transport everything, but in almost no time at all, he had everything he needed in his cave.

He placed the two large logs parallel, on the ground a small distance away from the fire. One for his head, and the other for his feet. His bed would be close enough to the fire so that he could keep warm during the night, while being far enough away so that it wouldn't catch on fire. That was the plan at least. He then placed the thinner, yet longer, tree branches on top of the two logs, perpendicular to them, to form a make shift mattress. The large pile of leaves on top finished the design. At the end, he had a relatively comfortable, all natural bed that was raised off the ground. A good thing that it was too. He had read that you lose body heat incredibly quickly while sleeping outdoors if you sleep on the ground directly.

Tonight should be a lot more comfortable than last night. Now if only he had a blanket.

 _'Oh well…'_ He'd just wear double layers again for now.

After eating his meal, he immediately went to bed. He was exhausted.

His fire continued to burn, and his sword was placed an arm's length away, just in case something happened in the middle of the night that required it. He was back to wearing both his gi, and his other set of clothes underneath, to keep warm.

His bed was surprisingly comfortable. It was far better than sleeping on the ground directly at any rate. If things continued to go as smoothly as they did today, he could start training really soon.

He could hardly wait.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	5. Chapter 5: Starting Point

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Gohan was stuck.

He had been on his own for a week, and during that time, had fallen into a routine. He would wake up to the sunrise every morning. After which, he would eat a breakfast consisting of whatever food he had stored in the cave from the previous day. Mostly berries or fruits. After finishing, he would spend the entire day exploring the forest, trying to map it out as best as he could. At some point, he would stop to refill his basket with fruits and nuts, and stop to eat lunch, but for the most part he spent all of his time exploring. During the late afternoon, he would stop by the river he had found, take a bath, and catch a fish or two, depending on the size, and take them back to the cave to cook. After dinner, he would leave the fire going to keep warm during the night, and carve a tally into the cave wall with a rock to keep track of the days.

He had seven tallies on the wall, meaning he had done this for a week straight. Today was his eighth day. The forest he was in was, for the most part, completely safe. There were some wild animals such as rabbits, snakes, and deer, but he had yet to find anything really dangerous.

For the most part, it was all pretty boring, when compared to the woods around his old house, but mapping it out was also necessary. He needed to know the layout of the place in which he was living, so he had to explore. He had to know if there were any dangers.

At first, getting through a full day had been exhausting. His back and legs would be sore from all of the walking, climbing, and fishing, that he had to do, but he would always be ready to go the next morning. He would be completely healed the next day, and most importantly, there would always be a noticeable increase in his strength. He would find himself at the end of each passing day, noticeably less sore, and with more overall energy. During the day, everything he needed to do was just easier. He was getting stronger.

This was also the reason why he was stuck. At the end of the previous day, he wasn't sore at all. He had the majority of the forest memorized, and he no longer had to worry about food or water. He had gotten completely used to his routine. He wouldn't get any stronger unless he changed it. He was ready to start training on his own.

The problem was, he had no idea where to start.

He had already eaten breakfast, and was currently sitting in his cave, deep in thought, trying to figure out what he needed to do to start training.

He had never trained before in his life. He knew that he had the ability to use something called Ki, but aside from those occasions where he had used his hidden powers, he didn't know how to access it, or how it worked. Other than the stories his dad had told him, and watching his dad use it himself, he had no experience with it. He had easily read hundreds of books in his short life, it used to be all that he did, but none of them ever mentioned Ki, at all. It was like nobody knew that it even existed aside from his dad, and his dad's friends.

All he had to go on, was his own past experiences, limited as they were, what his dad had told him in the past, and what his dad had done to train himself. Other than that, he had to figure out everything on his own.

When he thought about it that way, despite the situation, it kind of got him excited. His mom had always drilled into him that she wanted him to be a scholar. As a result, he spent most of his life studying. Science and math were some of his favourite things to read about, and they were both about making discoveries. He had read all about some of the most renowned scientists in the past, and some of the breakthroughs they had made. Now, he was in a similar situation as they had been. He was on the edge of the unknown, and needed to discover some of the secrets of a new field of knowledge. At least, it was new to him and most of the world anyways.

Discovering how Ki worked would be great practice for when he needed to discover something new in the future when he was a scholar. It was kind of like following in his father's footsteps, while still keeping his mom happy at the same time, too. Maybe Ki could benefit humanity in some way. If it could, then it was worth researching. If the idea had potential, then maybe he would be able to convince his mom that he could still be a scholar by studying Ki, the energy source that just so happens to involve allowing him to train like his dad. It was worth considering in the future.

 _'Applying science to Ki…'_ He certainly loved science, and he wanted to be strong like his dad. It was perfect.

In any case, he needed to learn how his power worked before he could get stronger. He had to be ready for the saiyans. His dreams for the future had to wait until he was sure that there would even be a future in the first place.

In order to get started, he had to start from scratch.

 _'Ok, so what are the facts?'_ He knew that Ki was a source of energy that lets you shoot lasers, fly, and do all sorts of other incredible things. From what his dad had told him, Ki was also used for the body to surpass its biological limits. The body can only get to a certain limit of strength by itself, so Ki is used to break through that barrier. Finally, training is necessary to increase or maintain a person's Ki level. If this were not the case then his dad wouldn't need to train all the time to be the strongest. In other words, the more often that a person's Ki is used, the stronger it gets.

 _'Makes sense so far…'_

At some point, he needed to unlock his own Ki, and learn how to control it himself. He had a huge amount hidden. But that wasn't all that was important. He would be using his Ki to fight, which meant that his physical body had to be in good shape as well. He needed to be able to dodge and evade, while also counter-attacking. This meant he needed to be flexible and agile. He was small, and would still be pretty small in a year when compared to everyone else. He could use his size as an advantage. He wouldn't just body build like so many other people in the world did to get stronger. There were plenty of famous martial artists that just beefed themselves up. It was impressive to normal people sure, but his dad's group of friends were far more capable then these people. Their excessive Ki, was far superior to massive amounts of muscle mass.

His own enormous Ki could count for his strength. Gaining excessive muscle mass would simply make it harder for him to move. It was a basic principle in some of his physics books. The more mass you have, the harder it is to accelerate, or dodge, in other words. If his Ki could be used to augment his strength he really didn't need a lot of muscle mass. He just needed a lot of Ki. But flexibility on the other hand, that actually would help out a lot. Having a much larger range of motion will allow for a huge variety of martial arts techniques to be learned.

He had to keep this concept in mind during his training. It probably wouldn't be too hard, considering he was super young, meaning his body was undeveloped, and he probably wouldn't be able to grow huge muscles even if he tried, but he had to keep it in mind in the future. Since he himself couldn't directly control the rate at which his muscles grow, he had to make sure they didn't get too big if he wanted to maximize his speed and agility. Those were the things that would give him the advantage at his age, not excessive physical strength.

He didn't want to get big, so he needed to learn how to use his Ki properly. He needed to improve his flexibility, and agility. He needed to learn how to control his movements completely, allowing for minimal energy loss as well. The amount of Ki that a person has is finite, so he needed to learn how to not waste any of it, so that he could last longer in a fight.

It was a lot to keep in mind, and there will probably be even more that he will learn once he started training. This was all just a starting point.

Pretty much everything relies on him unlocking that Ki of his first, so he needed to focus on that the most for now.

Ki, flexibility, and agility for now. Martial arts will come later.

That was his starting point. Now he just had to come up with a training schedule.

 _'Where to start…'_ He supposed that he should focus on his control, flexibility, and agility in the morning, and Ki in the evening. He just had to decide on how he wanted to do that.

 _'To start I should probably figure out what each of those are and how to go about improving each of them.'_

Flexibility, he could improve with some basic strength training, and stretches for the most part. Agility and control are very closely linked. For agility, he could go on runs throughout the forest, maybe through the canopy of the trees. Maybe practice climbing trees and cliffs as fast as possible. Control however, is all about minimizing the amount of energy he wanted to expend. He had to learn how to use the absolute minimum amount of energy in every movement. How would he go about doing that?

After thinking for a while, he came up with an idea.

 _'Stealth training.'_ Whenever someone makes a movement, energy is required. Every sound that is made, and every redundant move someone makes, also expends energy. If he could practice eliminating those, then he would theoretically have far better control over his energy, and would waste far less of it.

From now on, he needed to learn how to make every move silent and controlled. Something that he expected would take a while to get used to. But that was ok. He had time.

He wanted to be able to move as silently as possible all the time without thinking about it.

He needed to re-learn how to move.

With that, he came up with a plan.

Throughout the entire morning, he'd go on a run throughout the forest. He'd climb through the trees, and simply do whatever he felt like, with as little noise as possible. He'd collect his food, and do everything he needed out in the woods, come back with his fish for dinner, then work on accessing his Ki while it's cooking, and before he goes to sleep. He'd do that every day until he could move absolutely silently all the time and had no problem with his Ki, or if this current plan didn't end up working the way he thought it would.

With his plan set, he stood up from where he was seated, and promptly winced at how much sound he made. He had to be much more careful. He had to take it one step at a time. He slowly picked up his basket and sword, and turned towards the exit of the cave while strapping them over his shoulder.

He took a hesitant step towards the exit to the cave, doing everything he could to make it as quiet as possible. He barely heard it. He had a long way to go. He started walking forward incredibly slowly. He made sure that each step was as silent as possible. He was moving incredibly slowly at the moment, and was actually using more energy walking than he normally did, but he knew that once he got used to moving again, this new method of movement will be proven to be far more efficient. It would also be more effective. Walking silently would let him sneak up on enemies in a fight, and catch them off guard.

He exited the cave and began silently walking towards his favorite location to collect fruits and nuts. He would start out walking for now, until he got the hang of it, and would try some more advanced movements later.

He expected this to take a while.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	6. Chapter 6: Day Off

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Writing this chapter was a nightmare. I had a full chapter ready to go weeks ago, that I had to completely scrap because it was pretty bad. Even now, I'm not entirely satisfied with the way this one came out. Something just seems** ** _off_** **with it, and I'm not sure what. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but all of the other chapters, I was able to write in a single sitting. This one took** ** _weeks_** **of updating, and scrapping ideas.**

 **To top everything off, school started up again, and I'm going full time. So, updates will be** ** _much_** **slower than they used to be.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**

* * *

If there was one lesson that had been driven repeatedly into his mind recently, it was the importance of being calm, and patient.

Gohan opened his eyes and glanced over to his right.

Twelve tallies, carved into the cave wall greeted his gaze.

This was his fifth day in a row of making almost no progress whatsoever in his training, despite all his best efforts.

He was seated cross legged on the floor of his cave, next to a slowly dying fire. The fire's crackles were the only sound that could be heard in the area.

The sun had gone down about an hour ago by his estimate, and he had eaten dinner a few hours before that.

He had yet to carve today's tally as well. The thirteenth. But he'd wait until he was ready for bed before doing that. There was still too much on his mind to even consider sleeping just yet.

He had put so much effort into his training over the last few days, only to come out with nothing to show for it. Something that had been frustrating him to no end.

He had made steady progress during his first week out in the forest, just learning how to survive, but now he had seemingly plateaued. Maybe it was unrealistic expecting immediate results on his movement re-learning training, and on figuring out how to draw out his Ki, but it was still frustrating when he didn't improve as fast as he did before.

Over the past five days, he had _two_ goals that he pursued with absolute determination. There was _no_ moment in the day when he was not either thinking about, or directly attempting to achieve them.

He wanted to re-learn how to move so that he was silent all the time, and he wanted to be able to draw out his Ki without being in mortal danger.

The only things that he ended up learning so far, were that these were much harder to do than he had originally thought, and that it was completely impossible to achieve either of them while he was angry, or irritated about anything.

Moving around with perfectly controlled movements became impossible if he was upset. His irritation would create a subtle tension throughout his entire body that he simply _could not_ work around, no matter what he tried.

And as for Ki, he wasn't even sure of what he had to do to bring it out, but he suspected that the reason he kept on failing had something to do with his irritation at the situation in general, as well. Over the past few days of trying, he hadn't learned anything new about what he had to do to succeed with his Ki, so he could only speculate at what the problem was.

Now that he had recognized that his anger may have been impeding his progress however, he had begun working to correct it. He was calmer now than he had been over the last few days. Possibly calmer than he had ever been in his life.

This was simply due to the fact that he had taken the day off training, so that he could try to figure out how to solve his problems, and so that he could try to relax.

The previous few days had seen him getting up at the crack of dawn, moving through the forest to collect everything he needed to keep living out here in the wild, going through an elaborate, multi-hour, strength-and-flexibility training routine that he had come up with, followed by working on accessing his Ki until going to bed. Throughout the entirety of his routine, he gave his absolute best effort to move as silently, and with as much control as possible.

Other than being a bit more flexible, he had made no visible progress.

With each failed, silent movement, he became more frustrated, which made him fail even more moves. It was a vicious cycle that he needed to break out of. He had too much tension that he needed to deal with, so he had decided to take a break.

He had yet to leave his cave today, and it was almost time for him to go to bed.

He had collected a spare set of firewood yesterday, and a day's supply of berries and fruits so that he wouldn't have to leave the cave for any reason other than going to the bathroom.

Or this forests closest equivalent anyways.

He had spent the whole day just letting his thoughts wander. He was thinking about his home, about his parents, about this place, and how peaceful it was. Some of his dreams for the future too. But mostly about how to solve his Ki problem.

Just sitting back and relaxing, was something that he had never really indulged himself in, in the past. There seemed to always be _something_ that he had to do that always kept him too busy to relax.

At home, it was always _studying_ , from morning until night, regardless of how ridiculously far ahead he was in his education for his age. Out here, it seemed to be _training_ , as hard, and for as long as he could, so that he could fight the saiyans in a year.

This was the first time in a long time where he could just be left alone. Possibly the first time _ever_. He hadn't even noticed how stressed out he had been until now.

He released a sigh. The silence was something that he was grateful for. He could see why his dad spent so much of his off time just relaxing. He himself hadn't seen the appeal of it until now.

He had lazed around the whole day just thinking, and occasionally falling asleep. He had never felt more at peace. For the first time, he was actually grateful to have been dropped out here by Piccolo.

Out here he didn't have to worry about his mom forcing him to study all the time. She may have meant well, but he was already working on high school level material. College level even, in some areas of math and physics. Those two subjects were his favorites, and what he spent most of his time learning about after all.

He was pretty sure that he would be ready for any university that he applied to when he finally got to that age. He still had over a _decade_ to study until then too. He really didn't need to study as often as his mom made him, in his opinion. She may have had his best interests at heart, but it was still just a bit too much sometimes.

Sometimes, he wished that she would just tone it down a bit. He already liked math and science, and would continue to study them on his own even without her influence, but if he was ever forced to study them more often than he could handle, it would become a chore and he likely wouldn't enjoy them anymore.

That would be depressing.

It had already happened a few times in the past too, the most notable of which, was after he was forced to write one-too-many _essays_ on various literary 'masterpieces' from the past, for his English studies. He used to like and respect those books. They were usually good reads. But now, the repetitive and nonsensical inferences that he highly doubted even the original authors had known about, or intended to put into their story, that he had to write about and analyze, had forever killed any interest he could have had in English literature.

Now, every time he saw one of those books, he would see the huge stack of essays that he would have to write, if he read it, and would promptly decide that he had better things to do. His fear of essays was an irrational one, even by his standards, but he couldn't help it. It was called _irrational_ for a reason. It didn't make any sense.

In short, his mom had killed his love for books with her fanaticism. At least the non-science-textbooks anyways. He didn't ever want something like that to happen again, especially for his love of science.

She had never really listened either, and always seemed to flip out if he ever complained about having to study too much, too.

He loved his mom as much as anyone could, but she could be _really_ hard to deal with.

But out here at least, he didn't have to.

He was in a situation that used to terrify him, at first. Being alone in a forest, having to fend for himself. It was only recently that he could see that there were at least a few upsides.

Out here, at least for now, despite how bad it made him sound, he wouldn't have to deal with his mom. He could take a break from his constant studying.

There was nobody around that would try to tell him what he can and can't do.

For the first time ever, he could do anything he wanted to.

He let out a final, contented sigh, then readjusted his position into a stereotypical meditation position. He did it mostly to get into the right frame of mind for what he was about to do, than to get any actual benefit from sitting like that.

He was sitting cross-legged, with his hands intertwined, and resting in his lap.

He took a deep breath and relaxed.

Like all good things, his 'vacation' from training had to come to an end at some point. He had sat around doing nothing for long enough. Though, he definitely had plans for making more time to laze around again in the future. He could afford a few days off here and there over the next few months, as long as it didn't become habit.

He closed his eyes again. He had been starting to get bored anyways. Even _he_ could only spend so much time alone just thinking, before his thoughts started repeating themselves, or started to get irritating. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what was impeding his training progress now anyways, so he needed to confirm it.

He had been lazing around for over twelve hours now. Probably closer to sixteen actually, now that he thought about it, and he had never felt so calm and relaxed. He had needed the break. But, it was time for him to work on his Ki again.

With his eyes closed, he just waited. He took notice of every part of his body and kept each part as relaxed as possible. He had no idea what he was waiting for, but he was hoping for some sort of sign, or clue on what he had to do to get started.

He had no idea what it felt like to bring out his Ki, but he knew that he _had_ brought it out in the past on _multiple_ occasions. He just couldn't remember those times very clearly, at all. He was pretty much banking on his body being able to do most of the work on its own.

So much depended on him learning how to do this. He _had_ to figure it out.

He continued waiting. Keeping track of all of the feelings in his muscles, and trying to remain as relaxed as possible. He waited, and waited, and waited, and when _still_ nothing happened, he started to try _'stuff'_.

He didn't know what else to call it.

He wasn't even sure of what he was doing himself, but it felt to him like he was trying to mentally pull _something_ out of his body. But, in any case, whatever he _was_ doing, it clearly wasn't working. All it did was make him start seeing flashes of white, and small specks of light on the back of his eyelids.

Those flashes and specks were familiar though. He had seen them before on a number of occasions when he had been unable to fall asleep after he went to bed. When he would just lay there, trying to fall asleep with his eyes closed, but being unable to, due to having too many things on his mind, he'd suddenly start seeing various lights, and shapes moving around on the back of his eyes. The same ones he was seeing now. They would also occasionally show up if he ever rubbed his eyes too hard, or put any kind of pressure on them.

It happened when the blood flow in his eyes got messed up.

They also showed up quite often in many of his previous attempts at drawing on his Ki. All of which had failed, since he wasn't actually doing anything other than tensing his muscles. In other words, he was doing it wrong, again.

Concentrating on his body, he realized that he had _indeed_ tensed up again, and his eyes had scrunched up.

At least that explained why he was seeing those lights in his eyes now. He needed to relax.

He took in a deep breath of air, held it in for a few seconds, and then let it out. With it, he relaxed all of his muscles again.

Every single attempt so far had failed, and every single attempt had also ended up with his muscles tensed up, and his body anything but relaxed. Maybe there was a pattern there.

He was just going to sit still and wait. No matter how much he wanted to move, he wouldn't. If he still ended up failing, then at least he'd be able to cross another possibility off his list of 'ways to access Ki'.

So that's what he did. He waited.

Sitting perfectly still was actually a lot harder than he thought it was going to be. The minute he told himself to not move for anything, his body started getting minor itches all over that were really beginning to grate on his nerves.

Why?

He wasn't itchy thirty seconds ago, but now that he didn't want to move, his body had to put up a fight.

Why couldn't this just be simpler?

Well, he supposed that if it _were_ easier, then everyone would be able to do it.

Telling himself not to scratch those itches was really starting to get difficult. They just kept increasing in intensity gradually. Especially now, since he was paying attention to them.

It completely shattered any concentration he could've had.

He let out an annoyed sigh, and proceeded to scratch all of the itches that had shown up on his body, seemingly for no reason other than to annoy him.

Attempting to calm down again, he returned to his previous sitting position, and relaxed.

What was he doing wrong?

He had tried _forcing_ his Ki out somehow, and he had tried relaxing and remaining calm to draw it out, but neither 'method' seemed to work for him. He was still doing something that prevented him from accessing it.

But what was it?

He looked back on all of his previous attempts.

What were the things that he was doing during both methods?

In one method, he remained perfectly calm, in the other, he had made no attempt to relax. They sounded like complete opposites. At least, at first glance.

Well, in both methods he had to try and concentrate and-

…

 _'Oh…'_

His eyes opened wide in surprise at the revelation.

Could that be what the problem was?

It turned out that there _was_ something that he was doing during all of his previous attempts at bringing out his Ki. Something that could have, quite easily, impeded his progress. This had been the first time that he had even considered it as a possible problem.

During each of his attempts, he had been concentrating on what he was doing, but most importantly, the likely source of his problems was that he had been _thinking_ too much.

His thoughts were wandering. Even now they were. His body may have been relaxed but his mind definitely wasn't. Maybe he had to clear his mind first, somehow.

He had to _not_ think.

Well, _that_ was going to be difficult.

He was _always_ thinking, or trying to solve a problem. Pretty much every waking second of his life was spent mulling over one thing or another. Most of the time, without control. Whether it was a difficult homework problem from his books, or trying to figure out how to train effectively, he was _always_ thinking. It was just what he did.

His ability to just lose himself in his thoughts for potentially hours at a time was one of the things that he liked most about himself. He could keep focused on any problem for as long as he wanted to without stopping, or taking a break.

Even if he _did_ need to take a break, his break was spent further pondering the problem.

He had just sat in a cave for almost sixteen hours without moving, with nothing but his thoughts to occupy himself. And he wouldn't have had it _any_ other way.

He would be the first to admit, at least to himself, that he was pretty shy around other people. But, just because he was quiet outwardly around others, didn't mean that his mind was the same way. No, his mind was almost always _reeling_.

He would rather sit alone, lost in thought, then talk to someone that he didn't know, any day.

He had a powerful imagination that was always at work, sometimes without him even noticing it. Sometimes even to the point of becoming detached from reality entirely. Being completely unable to pay attention to anything around him, unless something changed, or moved in his surroundings. Despite this, it was something that he didn't ever want to change about himself. It was too useful a skill, in his experience, to try and get rid of, and it had caused him to come up with some pretty awesome ideas in the past.

He considered himself lucky being born with such a skill. There was _no_ situation, in which having a super active imagination was a problem. Until _now_ apparently, that is.

Now, it might be working against him. His thoughts were wandering without his control, and as a result, he was unable to access his Ki.

Trying to stop his thoughts was against his nature. It was going to be incredibly difficult for him to do so, if not impossible.

But, he was going to try either way. If stopping his thoughts somehow, was the solution to his Ki problem, then he would try it.

If only, in an attempt to prove it unnecessary. His thoughts were too valuable to want to cut them off for _any_ length of time. He really hoped that it wasn't required.

He had to sit perfectly still, and now he had to cut off any new thoughts that entered his-

…

He took a deep breath, recomposed himself, and then exhaled.

 _'No more thoughts…_ '

Not knowing what else to do, he pictured a white void, and stared off into it, while monitoring his muscles to make sure that they didn't tense, and remaining alert enough to notice any sudden changes, or signs in his body that might show him how to bring his Ki out. Then, he put all of his remaining attention and focus on the white void he pictured.

There was no way he'd be able to just _stop_ thinking, so he didn't even try. He _had_ to have his focus on _something_.

He would just sit back, and look into the void, while he waited.

He took one final deep breath, and exhaled.

It was time for the hard part.

He began cutting off all of his thoughts right as they started forming, then he looked into the void and just waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And after a very difficult few minutes, in which he was constantly cutting off every forming thought, he felt it.

There was a change. A _big_ one.

During the past few days in his meditation sessions, he had mentally gone over, repeatedly, the feelings of every single one of his muscles and nerve endings. He knew exactly what every single part of his body felt like all the time, both when tensed, and when relaxed. He had mentally searched throughout his whole _being_ extensively, in his search for his Ki, and knew himself intimately as a result.

Yet, everything he had ever felt throughout his life, the way it felt to move around, the pain during the few times he had hurt himself, the way it felt to be happy, or angry, all of his emotions, the way it felt to just exist, to think, his whole conscious experience, _paled_ in comparison to this new feeling.

It was like he had been staring at the sky his whole life, on an intensely cloudy day.

And now, for just a moment, there was a hole in the clouds that revealed the sun. Now that he could see it for the first time, it was impossible to not look at.

It was immediately evident that this _thing_ that he was feeling, was the only reason that he was alive. It was like looking at his own soul. His life force.

It was his Ki. Something like this just had to be. He had found it. Or more accurately, it had found him.

As quickly as the feeling came, it left. The clouds had covered the sky again. He had only been able to see beyond them for a moment, but that moment had been enough.

How had it ever been possible for him to _not_ notice it?

Finding his Ki had been a completely new experience. It was strange, finding out that he had another _thing_ linked into his nervous system that he had overlooked his whole life.

It was like noticing for the first time in his life that he had an extra arm sprouting out of his stomach, made out of fire.

It _literally_ felt like that. He had been able to feel the heat inside him. The way it moved around and flowed was like he was controlling a limb. A really weird limb that could expand and change its shape freely. He could feel it exactly like it was part of him, but it acted and moved around like a fire did. Or possibly even a liquid of some sort.

He could only sit back in shock, still _floored_ at the revelation, and at what he had felt.

How was it even _possible_ for something as noticeable and obvious as that, to hide from him?

It didn't make any sense how he couldn't feel it anymore. It had completely changed his whole perspective on the universe, and now it was like it was never there at all.

He _needed_ to feel it again.

Calming his breathing once again, he repeated his previous exercise. He stared into an imaginary white void, and waited, while cutting off all of his thoughts.

It was a much harder task this time, due to the fact that he was pretty eager to feel _that_ again. He was forced to repeat his efforts several times, and spend a few extra minutes calming down completely before he felt it again.

This time when he felt it, he forced himself to not react in any way. His surprise had completely shattered his concentration in his previous attempt. He didn't want the same thing to happen again. So instead, he put all of his attention on the new feeling inside him and mentally reached towards it.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was doing, or why, but his instincts were guiding him now. It was almost like his body knew _exactly_ what he needed to do. So, he followed his body's advice.

He grabbed a piece of the energy within him, and _pulled_.

He felt a comforting warmth around his stomach, as well as a wave of numbness that moved directly from his center, and down his arms. There was a small pressure build up in his hands, that he instinctively relieved by willing it out of his palms.

He opened his eyes when he felt a wind on his face, and heard a small humming sound.

Immediately, he felt a small strain on his mind that was somehow linked to what he was seeing.

He was still seated in his meditative position. He was cross-legged, with his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands open with his fingers curled. Almost as if he were holding a ball in front of him. Something that wasn't too far from the truth.

In the space between his hands he could see a small orb of yellow light, about the size of a marble. It was giving off a low humming noise.

It looked exactly like what he had seen his dad do in the past, only on a much smaller scale.

This time, the feeling he was getting was a lot stranger than it was before.

Before, it had felt like there was a fire in him, and it still did. However, now he could _feel_ the energy in his hands. It felt like it was just as much a part of him as his hands were. He had to actively concentrate, on keeping the ball still.

Somehow, the energy in his hands had a connection to his nervous system despite no longer being within his body. A fact that went against everything he had ever learned in his biology textbooks. There was _no_ physical connection between himself, and the ball of energy, so there shouldn't have been any reason at all for them to be linked. But they were. Technology could create a link between two things wirelessly, but people and animals couldn't, and certainly not to this extent.

This energy felt like it _was_ him. It was like having another body part.

This was _huge_. He had just discovered that the nervous system can function outside the body somehow.

Wanting to test the limits of this, he focused on the ball of energy, and slowly lowered his hands. As he expected, the ball remained where it was. Still floating in the air, softly humming, exactly where his hands had been.

So, despite the energy ball originally coming from his hands, his hands weren't needed to keep it still. He could feel the connection to the energy in front of him. It felt almost like the link was coming from his forehead.

Clenching his jaw, he put all of his effort into attempting to 'push' the ball of Ki forward.

It moved a _lot_ faster than he expected it to. Crossing the cave in less than a second he had no time to react when the energy hit the wall, and _popped_.

It didn't explode in a fiery flash of light like he thought it would. It just popped like a bubble, and fizzled out on the wall, leaving a small burn mark, and a crack.

There was a few moments of near silence in the cave, filled only with the still crackling fire, where he sat still and processed everything that had just occurred.

Now, if this were a few weeks ago, he'd probably want to jump up and cheer at his success since nobody was around, and he could be himself. But, for some reason, he didn't really feel like it anymore. He didn't even really feel all that cheerful. Not when he realized that he had mixed feelings about what had just happened.

He was confused mostly. A _little_ irritated at how much effort he had to put in for such a small explosion of energy, and a _lot_ happy at his success after almost a week of constant failures.

He had _questions_. _Lots_ of questions. And he was pretty excited about finding the answers too.

He had so much on his mind that he would have to work out, so he just continued to stare at the wall where his energy ball had popped, with wide eyes.

What could he do with his energy?

Why was he able to move it around externally, without him actually touching it physically?

Now that he succeeded in his Ki endeavors, could he now succeed with his movement training?

How could he use his Ki to augment his strength?

What _was_ Ki? It acted almost solid, and the way it popped reminded him of a water balloon. It was like no state of matter he had _ever_ read about.

Why did he have to put in so much effort to get such a small amount of energy, when in the past, when he was in danger he had destroyed mountains with ease?

Why did that small exertion noticeably tire him out?

He let out a yawn. He _was_ actually surprisingly tired now.

He had just made a huge breakthrough in his training, but ended up with more questions than answers. His whole view of reality had changed. Sure, he had known about Ki beforehand because of his dad, but experiencing it himself was totally different. There were _way_ more factors involved then what his dad had let on.

He needed to think. He needed to think, and he needed to sleep.

He was already tired from doing nothing all day. His recent exertion of Ki just made it worse.

He'd deal with it all tomorrow, after he had slept on everything he had just seen.

Making his decision, he stood up, still in a confused daze, walked over to his bed, and dropped down onto it.

He wasn't sure how he felt about everything yet, he needed some time to figure it all out.

Closing his eyes, he went to sleep for the night.

He'd mark a tally in the wall in the morning.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**


	7. Chapter 7: Ghost

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

 _'So it's going to be one of_ those _days, huh…'_

In all honesty, he really shouldn't have been surprised.

He had tried to go to sleep. He really did, but too much had happened in the past few hours for him to succeed for any significant length of time.

His mind was exhausted, yet it refused to stop working.

He had replayed the event over and over again in his head, thinking through all of the implications that _finally_ unlocking his Ki held.

He might have fallen asleep for a few hours, if that, but the rest of his time since then had been spent tossing and turning in his bed, _restlessly_.

This had only ever happened to him a handful times in the past. Whenever he had been studying one of his favorite subjects, and a new theory had been presented that had _completely_ blown his mind, he would usually find himself in the same state that he found himself in now, when he finally went to bed.

Dead tired, but unable to sleep as his mind whirled, thinking through all of the new possibilities.

Huh.

Maybe he needed to get _out_ more if the most exciting things that happened to him involved learning about brand new, controversial, scientific theories.

His recent experience with his Ki, worked exactly the same way. It raised too many questions for him to sleep properly at the moment. He needed to figure out _how_ to utilize his Ki in his training before he'd be able to rest.

His mind simply _refused_ to leave a thought process unfinished.

His current Ki level was frankly, _pathetic_. He needed to work on _that_ as soon as possible. For _some_ reason, he couldn't access the massive amount of Ki that he knew he had, hidden away. The amount he could access consciously at the moment, was _miniscule_ by comparison.

And _that_ threw a few wrenches in his current training plans.

He had originally hoped that, after unlocking his Ki, he would be able to access _all_ of his hidden power at will. Something that couldn't have been further from the truth.

He had wanted to spend all of his training time on Ki experiments, working on new techniques, and most importantly, on his silent movement training. Since he had so much hidden power, he had thought that he wouldn't really need to _waste_ a whole lot of time _getting stronger_ , and that he would have _more than enough_ time to spare on trying out new ideas.

But _that_ wasn't the case anymore.

If he wanted to compete against the saiyans, then he needed to get strong, _fast_. He didn't have a lot of time to spare on things that he wasn't even sure would work out in the end.

His silent movement training, unfortunately, fit right into that category.

He needed to come up with a completely new training plan, as his current one was obsolete.

He had grown attached to his silent movement idea, but if he wasn't strong enough to fight a saiyan directly in the first place, it would ultimately be useless.

He had seen the battle that his father had had with his uncle, and had witnessed firsthand what high level combat looked like.

How was moving really quietly going to help him out in a fight like that, if he wasn't strong enough to keep up in the first place?

It _wouldn't_.

 _Maybe_ , he should just spend all of his time getting stronger and faster, rather than just learning control. All of the control in the world wouldn't help him out in a fight of that caliber at his current level. He didn't have his hidden strength to rely on, so he needed to either unlock it somehow, or get strong without it.

He needed to focus on his Ki, rather than waste his time trying to do something that he didn't even know was possible, and had no luck with. Training stealth had yielded absolutely _no_ results so far, and he didn't have enough time, or patience, to keep testing it out anymore either.

The whole point of it was to learn how to minimize his energy use in each movement, but how much energy would he really _save_ anyway?

Maybe it wouldn't even really make all that much of a difference.

In any case, even if it _was_ possible, _and_ was worth training, he simply didn't have the time, with the way things were going.

All of his time spent learning how to be stealthy, could have been spent increasing his Ki reserves, coming up with new attacks, and getting stronger.

He didn't have time to waste on trial and error training methods. He had to go through essentially a _lifetime_ of strength training in less than a year to even _approach_ the strength of his dad, or the saiyans. There was a limit to what he could do in that time.

The longer he thought about his situation, the more doubts he had.

Ultimately, his training seemed to come down to _one_ thing.

Since he was going to be fighting, he needed to spend _all_ of his training time working on skills that would _increase_ his odds of surviving a direct confrontation with the saiyans.

What would being quiet, be useful for at his current level? Running away? It wouldn't even do him any good there, since the saiyans would be too powerful to run away from, even if he wanted to. And besides, he had already resolved to himself that he wouldn't run away from them when the time came.

He wouldn't let his dad down again.

What would learning all of the intricacies of Ki do for him in the end? Sure he might be able to do a few new interesting tricks, but how would that help against beings who were capable of destroying cities, possibly even the planet itself?

He didn't know for sure how strong these new saiyans were.

His powers were still _dormant_ , as a result, he needed to sacrifice his unconventional training plan for a more practical one.

He couldn't _waste_ any more time.

Restlessly, he rolled over onto his other side.

God, he was tired.

There was still _no way_ he was going to fall asleep any time soon either, if his past experiences in similar situations were anything to go by.

He had _too_ much on his mind, and needed some air.

Rolling onto his stomach, he pushed himself up, and onto his feet.

Letting out a yawn, he walked over to the cave entrance.

He didn't want to fully leave the cave, so he just looked out into the night, at the distant treeline a few hundred meters away.

What did his dad do to train? He could remember distinctly, that in the past, he could _hear_ his father walk around whenever he moved. Whatever his dad's training entailed, it clearly didn't involve stealth to the degree that he had been considering for his own training.

His dad made _noise_ when he walked around.

Yet, his dad was the strongest on the planet.

Surely if there was a better way to train, his dad would have found it right? If his own training ideas actually _did_ work, and were effective, surely his dad would have already tried them out in the past at some point, right?

His dad seemed to exclusively train his overall strength, his Ki, and his martial arts techniques. Nothing else. Stealth wasn't a factor. Neither was experimentation.

Maybe that meant that they weren't important enough skills to train.

Maybe, _all_ of his theoretical ideas didn't work in reality.

If they _did_ , his dad or Piccolo would have already tried them.

He let out an irritated sigh, and gently closed his eyes.

He had no idea what he needed to do anymore.

Well, actually, he did. He was just reluctant to do it.

He had spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to train, and he had all kinds of ideas that sounded _great_ in theory. He just didn't have enough time to make them work.

But they were still his ideas, so he was really reluctant to just abandon them all for a more practical approach.

But, the practical approach was guaranteed to increase his chances of survival in the coming fight. It was what his dad, and Piccolo seemed to favor too. If there was a better way, surely one of them would have found it by now. They had _decades_ more experience with training than he did, so they probably knew better.

His stealth training idea, wasn't even known to be possible. Not to mention, that it seemed pretty impractical in a battle with a saiyan. There were just _too_ many unknowns that he didn't have time to work through.

The practical approach just kept sounding better and better.

Stealth and control, were only important if he was _strong_ enough to utilize them in a fight.

With his powers _dormant_ , he needed to get strong first.

When there was a time constraint, it was better to stick with what has been proven to work in the past, then to try something new, and untested.

With a final review of his thoughts, he made his decision. He needed to get stronger, faster, and learn how to use his Ki in energy attacks. He couldn't waste his time learning all of the intricacies of Ki with such a small amount of time to spare. Besides, he could always come back after the saiyans were defeated to experiment with his abilities.

He'd have his whole life afterwards to try out new things.

Right?

He would train the same way as his dad, and save his new ideas for when he was a bit more experienced.

With his mind finally made up, he turned around, with the intent to go back to bed. His thoughts were now resolved, so he should be able to get a few hours of sleep before the sunrise.

After letting out a yawn, something made him _freeze_ , mid-stride.

It was only after listening carefully to his surroundings, and trying to identify what had made him pause, that he noticed it.

Something was _wrong_.

There was an eerie feeling in the air. One that sent a shiver down his spine. It was a feeling that put him on instant alert, and made the hairs on the back of his neck _rise_.

He _knew_ what this feeling was.

He had felt it _numerous_ times before. Everyone did at some point to his knowledge, but most of the times that he had felt it himself, it was usually just a by-product of his child-like imagination. It was not so long ago, that he went through the phase of constantly checking for invisible monsters under his bed, and in his closet after all.

Children were generally afraid of a lot of things that they shouldn't be. _He_ was no exception.

No… _this_ feeling. It wasn't new to him.

He was young, inexperienced at life, and still carried that general childish paranoia when it came to _all_ things _unknown_.

This feeling was stronger than it had _ever_ been, during all of those times he had felt it in the past. _Much_ stronger.

This time, it felt _real_.

It felt as if he were being _watched_ … right _now_.

And _this_ time, it scared him. _This_ time, nobody else was around to convince him that the monsters he was afraid of weren't real.

And he _was_ afraid. More so then he really should have been.

He wanted so badly, to just take the remaining few steps inside the cave to sleep, he really did, but he was _frozen_ in fear. His body wouldn't listen to reason when he was like this. Even if he knew that there was no good reason to be afraid, he couldn't help it.

He was still just a kid.

What if _this_ time, the monsters _were_ real?

 _Something_ in the area, was just _wrong_.

After spending a few moments listening to the area around him, and debating about whether or not to just ignore the feeling in order to try to go to sleep, he steeled himself, and against his better judgement, slowly turned back around to face the trees.

It took another moment or two before he finally figured out what had put him on edge.

The forest was _way_ too quiet. Eerily so.

The thing that made him freeze in the first place was a sound that he had heard. A sound that he really shouldn't have been able to hear at this distance. It was a snapping sound. A twig or branch had broken, _far_ off in the forest. He _barely_ heard it, but it _was_ enough to notice.

The only reason he had heard it was because the area was just _too_ quiet.

Normally, he was able to hear the sounds of various nocturnal animals if he was ever up this late at night. The forest _never_ truly slept. There were _always_ animals awake doing something or another, usually insects.

But tonight, it sounded like the forest was _dead_.

There was _no_ sound _at all_ coming from the forest.

No insects, no birds, no animals, there weren't even any trees, or leaves, rustling.

Under normal circumstances, a branch breaking in a forest was common place, and would _never_ be able to be heard over the sounds of the forest from _this_ far away.

But right now, it was the _only_ sound emitted from the _entire_ forest. And since the forest was the only source of background noise in the area, the only sounds that he could hear were his own breathing and heartbeat, and the quiet crackling from the fire that was still going, back in his cave.

It was _creepy_.

The forest was surprisingly scary at night, when it was silent like this. He almost wanted to rush into his cave to grab his sword.

The silence just felt _too_ unnatural.

Instead, against his better judgement, he continued to watch the treeline, looking for something that was out of place.

This was a different kind of _fear_. A primal type. Fear of something unknown. Even though he had searched through the _entire_ forest, and was relatively confident that there was nothing within it that could really hurt him, _this_ was different.

 _Something_ out there had made everything in the forest go quiet.

He wanted to turn around and leave, but was too afraid of making noise in this _silence_ , so he just remained frozen, still searching for anything abnormal.

 _'Maybe it was Piccolo? Maybe he came back to check up on me?'_ He thought, uneasily, and with a little hope.

 _Movement_.

His vision was instantly drawn to something moving behind one of the trees about a hundred meters away.

A black _figure_ stepped out from behind the tree, in complete silence, and walked out into the open.

Gohan's eyes widened, and remained locked onto the being.

It was human shaped, and just remained standing between the two trees, looking out into the clearing.

After squinting his eyes, he could immediately verify, one important thing.

It _wasn't_ Piccolo.

The whole area was _way_ too dark to see clearly, but there was a faint light coming from the moon, and stars. It was enough to distinguish the figure clearly from the trees around it.

The figure had long hair, and didn't have the cape and shoulder armour that Piccolo did. He didn't know what, or who that was, and for some reason… _that_ scared him.

The being was just standing there, perfectly still, just looking out into the clearing separating the two of them, but not quite facing him.

He didn't know _why_ he was so afraid, but he couldn't help it. This whole situation just felt _wrong_ , almost like a nightmare. One where he _knew_ something bad was about to happen, but could do _nothing_ to stop it.

So he just stood frozen, and continued to watch, as the figure bent down to grab something, picked it up, and continued walking, disappearing behind the next tree over.

It didn't seem like he had been seen by whoever or _whatever_ that was, at least. The fire in his cave was much too dim for it to illuminate the cave entrance behind him, thankfully.

Just then, he felt something pass over him. Almost like a wave of warm wind that encompassed his entire body. Whatever it was, _forced_ his Ki to make another appearance. It felt almost like his Ki was _resonating_ with whatever this wind was.

His Ki flooded his entire body, and was brought to the surface of his skin, almost as if it were trying to reach out and grab onto the energy that was currently surrounding him.

His Ki flooded his muscles, and he idly noticed, that if he could figure out how to do what he's doing right now, later, he'd finally be able to augment his strength. He had never felt as strong as he did _now_.

The wind surrounded him, and he could feel it _contouring_ to his body somehow, as if it were measuring where he was, and what he looked like.

It almost felt as if the ' _wind'_ was watching him somehow. It reminded him of a sonar. An idea that was only further validated as the wind's intensity grew slightly, and remained locked onto him, rather than passing over him. It was only about as intense as a gentle breeze, but he _could_ feel it.

It was _completely_ unnatural.

For a moment, the wind was motionless. When it stopped, it felt as if he was underwater. Then, as abruptly as the wind came, it left. His Ki died down, and he felt it disappear.

The feeling had been indescribable. Both awe-inspiring, and terrifying.

After a few moments of silence, he let out a breath that he hadn't known he had been holding.

Before he had the chance to mentally question what had just occurred, or why, he heard another sound. It sounded like someone's breath _hitched_ … right in front of him.

He looked up, _startled_ … right into the eyes of the black _figure_ , presumably the one he had seen earlier, standing _right in front of him_ , not three meters away.

There had been _no_ warning. The figure had crossed the _whole_ clearing in an instant, utterly soundlessly. His instincts hadn't picked up on the figure's arrival _whatsoever_.

There were _no_ air movements. It just _appeared_.

Like a ghost.

If he hadn't felt fear before, then he certainly did now. He could do nothing but stare in wide-eyed horror, at the _thing_ in front of him.

He almost wanted to scream, or faint, but for some reason, he didn't. He just remained frozen right where he was standing, without making a sound. It seemed that under extreme amounts of fear, he _froze_ , rather than taking the much more common fight, or flight, methods.

To an outsider, it may have even looked like he was only moderately surprised at what had just occurred, rather than all-out _terrified_.

His mind had completely shut down for a few moments, before he realized that he was _indeed_ still alive, and that the figure in front of him wasn't moving at all.

It was just standing there, looking right back at _him_.

The figure was a bit taller than he was, not yet the height of a teenager, likely around the height of a twelve or thirteen year old, dressed mostly in black, but now that he was paying attention, he could make out _blonde_ , spiky hair, and most notably, there was a _tail_ wrapped around his waist.

Just like his own.

Impossibly, this was a _saiyan_.

One who, strangely enough, looked just as surprised as he was, if not, even _more_ so.

The newly identified saiyan's face, had ' _surprised'_ written all over it. He almost even looked _afraid_ to see him.

There was a momentary stare down between the two of them, before a look of understanding appeared on the blonde saiyan's face, as if he had just figured out what was going on.

A look of _determination_ then crossed the saiyan's dimly lit features.

Gohan's mind did what it always did in unfamiliar, unexplainable situations. After rebooting, it _exploded_ into a frenzy of questions and possible explanations.

 _This_ was another saiyan. _How?_

There were only supposed to be _two_ left, other than his dad.

What did this new one want? Why was he out here in the forest? How did he move so _fast_? How _strong_ was he?

In a moment of realization, everything seemed to click into place.

His uncle Radditz, came here in a _spaceship_. _That_ meant, that the saiyans were capable of interstellar, possibly even _intergalactic_ travel.

Something that required spaceships that were capable of _faster-than-light_ travel. _Much_ faster than light. As a result, he had _no idea_ how fast the Saiyan spaceships were.

There was _no_ reason to believe that it would take a _full year_ for the two incoming saiyans to get here, _especially_ since a year according to the planet that Radditz came from, may have differed from a year, Earth time.

They really had _no_ clear idea _when_ the saiyans would arrive. Despite what they had been told by Radditz, the information was _impossible_ to verify, and _useless_ as a result.

His uncle may have only _said_ that it would take a year, so that he could throw everyone on the planet off guard, and leave the Earth defenseless when the saiyans _actually_ arrived, giving the saiyans a _huge_ advantage.

It was a _brilliant_ tactical move, in his opinion. Deliberately leaking false information to your enemies to gain an advantage.

 _This_ was what the Earth was up against?

How terrifying.

They had _already_ lost.

The saiyans were _already_ here, and nobody else but him, knew it.

The one in front of him was short, when compared to his dad, and uncle. Much shorter than the black figure that he had seen in the trees earlier too.

Which meant that _both_ of the saiyans were out here for some reason.

If there were even going to be _only_ two. Maybe Radditz lied about that too, and there were actually _more than two_ , on their way.

He wouldn't be surprised.

The Earth didn't have a _clue_ what it was in for. _Everything_ we were told could have been a _lie_.

So much for preparations.

Going by the evident determination on the new saiyan's face, _he_ was probably about to be killed.

That wind earlier must have somehow sensed his energy. _That_ was why his Ki had reacted the way it did. The wind technique somehow brought out the energy of the target, so that it could be measured.

Which meant, his own Ki had been read. Possibly even his vast _hidden_ powers that he couldn't yet control.

From the perspective of this saiyan, _he_ was a child with _huge_ Ki reserves that could become a potential _roadblock_ in their conquest of the planet.

He was a _threat_ … and was going to be _eliminated_ for it.

There was _no_ way he could compete against someone that was _this_ fast.

And judging by how silently this new guy got here, the saiyans had mastered _his_ silent movement idea too. Possibly to an even _greater_ degree than even _he_ had thought possible.

If nothing else, at least he now knew that it was possible to move like that. His training ideas _worked_ after all.

Who knew?

 _He_ could accept his death, knowing that he had been right.

Maybe the people of Earth could still win in the end. Surely Piccolo will notice if his life force disappears, and will be able to mount some kind of defense against these saiyans.

The blonde saiyan lowered his center of gravity and prepared to move.

Gohan's life flashed before his eyes.

 _'Sorry mom… dad…'_

Maybe he'd see his dad on the other side.

At least there was that.

Faster than he could blink, the saiyan took an impossibly fast, soundless, step towards him, and launched himself… back into the trees in the distance?

What?

He continued to stare after him, still frozen in shock.

The saiyan had moved in complete silence again, and had covered the length of the clearing in _way_ less than half a second. He could only just _barely_ follow it with his eyes. It was _frightening_ how fast he was. _Way_ faster than he had seen Piccolo move earlier, and _impossibly_ more refined in his movements.

But he was still left without an explanation.

Why?

Why was he still _alive_?

Not that he wasn't grateful or anything, but leaving him alive served _no_ tactical advantage in conquering the Earth.

He dropped down to his knees and tried to catch his breath. Sweat was pouring down his face. _That_ was easily the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.

That saiyan was _way_ out of his league.

But maybe… it wouldn't matter. He was still alive at the moment. If he could get his sword, then _maybe_ , just _maybe_ , if the saiyan attacked him, and he was _incredibly_ lucky, his hidden power would come out, at least long enough for Piccolo to _sense_ it.

He didn't think for a second that his powers would be enough to defeat someone of _that_ caliber.

But maybe if he could warn Piccolo, then maybe Earth would still stand a chance.

 _Maybe_.

It was all he could do.

He shakily got up off his knees and scrambled into his cave as fast as possible. He made a beeline to his sword and drew it.

Taking a moment to look at the blade, he tried to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to do.

The blade might as well have been a toothpick against that saiyan. There was no way the sword would prove to be an effective weapon here.

But it'd have to do. It was at least better than being unarmed.

He spun around, and tried to make his way to the cave exit, when he _bumped into someone_.

Stumbling backwards, he opened his eyes to see the black shirt that the blonde saiyan was wearing. His eyes widened in fear, and he glanced up at his face.

In the time it took for him to transfer his gaze from the saiyan's shirt to where his face would be, the saiyan had _disappeared_ without a trace.

It was a level of speed that _eclipsed_ , even the blonde saiyan's own previous demonstration in the clearing. In an instant, he just wasn't there anymore. He didn't fade out, or blur, he just wasn't occupying the space he had been a moment ago.

 _That_ was when he felt a hand touch the center of his back.

In the next instant, and before he could fully react or even comprehend what was going on, the world _blurred_. His surroundings darkened and there was a flash of light, before he landed on his back on the ground.

His eyes were closed and he waited for the pain to come… but, it never did.

Was he _dead_?

He slowly opened his eyes and noticed that he was sitting on a patch of grass. The air felt different, but that _hardly_ compared to the biggest and most notable change that had occurred.

It wasn't night time anymore.

The air around him was _really_ foggy, so much so, that it was almost impossible to see what was going on two feet in front of him. But there was still light. The sky wasn't dark anymore, and he certainly wasn't in his cave.

He could even hear the sounds of insects, and running water in the distance. A contrast from the eerie silence of the forest in which he had just been.

Where the heck _was_ he?

He took a quick glance around his surroundings.

This _couldn't_ be real. He _had_ to be dreaming. He had had some pretty vivid dreams in the past, but _this_ one took the cake.

He must have actually fallen asleep after unlocking his Ki, and dreamt up this _whole_ thing. The entire situation was just _too_ absurd to be believed otherwise.

In order for him to go from night to day so quickly, he would have to travel to an area of the planet that was currently day time. Which had to mean that, in an _instant_ , that saiyan took him, potentially, to the other side of the _world_.

He absolutely _refused_ to believe that. It was just _too_ fast. He _had_ to be dreaming. There was _no other_ explanation.

He'd even prove it.

He raised his sword and ran his index finger along the edge.

He immediately dropped it again, in _disbelief_.

He had _felt_ the sharp stab of pain. It was enough of a shock for him to drop his sword.

It hit the ground blade first, and sunk into the grass a few inches.

His finger was now _bleeding_ , and he had _felt_ the pain.

 _Impossible_.

You weren't supposed to feel pain to that extent in dreams. In his experience, if he was ever killed, or hurt, in a dream, the most pain that he would feel was just a dull, _phantom_ pain, which quickly faded after _immediately waking up_.

It wasn't supposed to be like _this_.

He had _no_ immediate explanation for his current situation.

If it wasn't a dream then what was it?

He _really_ had to stretch his imagination to come up with another possibility.

Maybe, the saiyans have the technology to transport people large distances incredibly quickly? But he could see no reason why they would take _him_ anywhere alive.

Unless maybe he was going to be used as a hostage?

 _Radditz_ did that last time, so he couldn't completely dismiss the possibility.

Maybe he was in some kind of illusion, or a really, really, realistic dream? One unlike _any_ he had ever had?

He had _no_ idea.

One thing was for sure though. He was once again, completely helpless.

His head snapped up when he heard a voice.

"You are surrounded by people who do nothing but make stupid decisions. Your dad's friends, Piccolo, even your dad himself. They all make terrible decisions when it comes to defending your planet."

He looked around furiously for the source of the voice. It seemed to be coming from everywhere around him at once.

He saw the silhouettes of some unusual trees in the fog. Ones that looked like giant _sticks_ , _planted_ into the ground, with a spherical _bush_ on the top, and no other leaves anywhere else.

There were some other unusual plants that he couldn't immediately recognize, and it appeared that he was in a valley, between two cliffs.

But he couldn't see anyone else in the area.

He had been completely thrown for a loop, and had absolutely _no_ idea what was going on anymore.

"Who… who are you?" He asked fearfully.

"Why are the saiyans on their way to Earth?" The voice asked, seemingly ignoring his question.

Now Gohan was even _more_ confused. What did _that_ have to do with anything? This guy was even talking as if he weren't actually a saiyan himself.

Yet he had seen the guy's tail.

What the heck was going on?

But… it was a good question. He wasn't actually too sure himself. He just knew they were coming because Piccolo had told him that they were.

He just _assumed_ that they wanted to conquer the planet, and get revenge for Radditz's death.

"You're wrong." The voice continued.

Gohan blinked.

He hadn't even said anything.

 _'Oh wait…. I understand now…'_

This was _just like_ that dream that he had on his first day out in the wild, about Piccolo. It was just an overly realistic, hallucination, brought on by exhaustion.

For some reason, he kept having those recently. This was his second one in about two weeks. Were vivid dreams like this one, _common_ in other kids, his age? Would they keep happening to him in the future?

He must have exhausted himself after unlocking his Ki, and using it for the first time. He was probably still in his cave, fast asleep.

He still had _no_ idea who the voice belonged to though. He couldn't recognize it.

If this was anything like his previous dream about Piccolo however, then he was about to make some pretty interesting discoveries. He just had to find the answer to each question and take them seriously.

Wait.

He was wrong?

 _Why_ was he wrong about the saiyans? If they weren't on their way to conquer the Earth, then what were they coming for?

"The saiyans are on their way to the Earth because they know about the Dragonballs." The voice finished.

Gohan's eyes widened.

How could they _possibly_ know about those? Most of the people even on _this_ planet didn't know about them.

He was _wrong_ about this dream. This really _wasn't_ like the dream that he had earlier. This voice was telling him things that he didn't actually know himself.

That dream about Piccolo, didn't tell him anything new. It just allowed him to see a new perspective on things that he had already been told, or figured out for himself.

He hadn't even _considered_ the possibility that the saiyans _knew_ about the Dragonballs. There was just _no way_ for them to know, as far as he could tell.

If the saiyans got their hands on all-powerful, wish granting Dragonballs…

He didn't even want to think about it. They could do _so much worse_ than just _destroying_ the Earth…

If the saiyans had known about them for a while, then they would have attacked already. Probably when Radditz arrived. Since the saiyans _haven't_ attacked yet, they must have only _recently_ found out about them, which means that they had to have been told, possibly by Radditz himself.

Maybe Radditz had some way to communicate with the other saiyans?

He shook his head.

But that _still_ couldn't have happened. Radditz _couldn't_ have known about them himself, even if he _could_ hypothetically contact the other saiyans, unless…

 _'You are surrounded by people who do nothing but make stupid decisions. Your dad's friends, Piccolo, even your dad himself. They all make terrible decisions when it comes to defending your planet.'_

 _That_ was what the voice had said, wasn't it?

Gohan narrowed his eyes.

He had been _told_. Someone from Earth, had _told_ Radditz about them.

If the saiyans were _indeed_ after the Dragonballs, and _nothing else_ , then whoever told Radditz, potentially doomed the planet.

There was absolutely _no reason_ _whatsoever_ to tell him. _Nobody_ should have been that careless.

So how did he know? Who _told_ him?

He closed his eyes, and began to think. This was a _serious_ issue. An incredibly dangerous enemy had found out that the Earth was the home of artifacts with _indescribable_ power. As good a reason as _any_ , for the planet to become a _massive_ target for other races like the saiyans. If Radditz had found out himself, then _any_ alien enemy in the universe, could potentially find out as well.

 _Any_ _allies_ of the remaining saiyans, may now know about them too. The Earth has been officially advertised to the universe as a valuable target for invasion.

All because _someone_ told Radditz. There was an information leak that he _had_ to find.

Someone putting his home and family at risk like that was _unacceptable_.

So, what had happened on that day? How did he find out?

 _'Radditz first arrived on dad's old teacher's island, in order to talk to him. '_

Radditz, and his dad, _had_ talked for a while… before things went south…

His dad had been told about the saiyans, about being Radditz's brother, about the destruction of the Saiyan home world by a meteor…

Something about a saiyan's power increasing at the sight of a full moon too… He'd have to look into that later…

But his dad never mentioned the Dragonballs as far as he could recall. _Nobody_ had at the time.

He had then been knocked out himself, and kidnapped.

When he eventually came to, he was locked in that spaceship, where he would then witness the fight between his dad, Piccolo, and Radditz.

During that fight, either his dad, _or_ Piccolo must have let the information slip. And Radditz must have _then_ relayed the information to the other saiyans somehow.

But who? _Who_ did it?

He needed to know. That way, if they were ever in a situation like that again, he would be able to _stop_ that person from spilling the planets secrets to our enemies, again.

They were supposed to _defend_ the Earth, not paint a target on it. And the best way to defend something, is to make sure that nobody knows it's there.

It was either his dad, or Piccolo.

He tried to remember what happened in the fight.

He hadn't been able to see what happened very clearly from his vantage point in the ship, but he remembered seeing how fast paced it was, and how destructive.

He remembered how neither his dad, nor Piccolo, could really land a hit.

And then his dad managed to get behind Radditz and grab his tail, rendering him completely helpless, and then… he let it go?

That stopped his thoughts, right in their tracks.

What?

Why?

Why did his dad do that? The battle should have ended right _there_.

He shook his head. It didn't matter at the moment, he'd think about _that_ later.

Radditz immediately got the upper hand after that, and managed to defeat both Piccolo _and_ his dad.

That was when _he_ intervened himself, with his hidden powers… He didn't really remember what happened after that. He apparently landed a fatal wound on Radditz though, according to Piccolo…

He let out a sigh of frustration. He _still_ had no idea.

"It was Piccolo." The voice stated. "Both your father, and Piccolo risked every life on the planet that day. Your dad was willing to let a clearly superior enemy get away from his grip, but it was Piccolo, who told Radditz about the Dragonballs."

"Why?" Gohan's voice had a noticeable amount of irritation in it.

"No reason."

Gohan clenched his fists.

If it were an honest mistake that was _one_ thing, but to just tell your enemy flat out, out of your own free will, about exactly _why_ they should invade the planet…

That was just _stupid_.

He was almost _five years old_ , and even _he_ understood that. Granted, he was an incredibly _gifted_ five year old with a phenomenal memory, _and_ was probably already smarter than _both_ of his parents in most subjects, but that was beside the point.

It was still _obvious_.

Don't advertise _anything_ to your enemy, under any circumstances.

Mistakes like that, were the reason for the defeat of one side in almost _every single war_ mentioned in his history books.

One side gets critical information on the other, and then the war ends soon after. Knowing your enemies secrets was a far more effective weapon than anything else.

In contrast, _broadcasting_ your own secrets to your enemy is the stupidest thing you can do.

He took a deep breath, and let it out.

It didn't matter now. It was in the past. Getting angry wouldn't change anything.

"Your dad, is a fighter. Piccolo, is a fighter. All of your dad's friends, are fighters. What do you suppose is going to happen if the saiyans are defeated by one of them? What will your dad do, if he defeats one, and they beg for mercy?"

Gohan could answer without hesitation.

His dad would give it freely. Regardless of how dangerous they were. Even at the risk of every life on the planet. That was just how his dad _was_.

It was exactly what he did with Radditz, and it was exactly what he would continue to do in the future. With Radditz though, he actually _did_ give his own life for showing mercy.

He even risked the life his son.

His eyes widened.

 _My_ life.

 _That_ made him pause.

His dad was perfectly _willing_ to let his son's kidnapper go. He didn't knock him out first, or critically injure him, he just… let him go.

 _That_ revelation felt like a spike being driven into his chest.

 _'That was supposed to be the whole point of coming after me right? To save me from Radditz? Why didn't you then? You essentially had my life in your grasp, and then you… you just… gave it back to Radditz.'_

And for what?

Was it because he said he was sorry, and begged for mercy? Was it because you wanted a good fight? Was there another reason?

It didn't even matter.

If the point was to rescue me, you would have knocked him out when you had the chance and then _done_ so. You _could_ have given him mercy after he woke up, if you absolutely had to, and _after_ you had rescued me.

But you _didn't_.

 _'Was I… was I just the excuse you gave so that you could have a good fight? Did you come after me, not because I was kidnapped, but because Radditz would put up a fight?'_

No, that… that couldn't be right… could it?

His dad would _never_ do something like that.

His dad loved a good fight sure, but what _he_ was suggesting, would mean that his dad loved fighting _more_ than he loved his own family.

Was that really the truth?

Could he _really_ see his own father believing that?

His dad _did_ give up the opportunity to rescue his son after all…

In _any_ case, he couldn't think of a _single_ valid reason for his dad to be able to justify letting Radditz go the way he did.

And _that_ was unsettling…

He had a _lot_ to think about. This _dream_ was really starting to shake up his beliefs.

"The Earth doesn't need another fighter. It needs someone willing to do what is necessary to defend it. You can see the mistakes in the actions of everyone around you. You need to understand that just because someone else does something one way, doesn't mean that that way, is the only way, or even the right way." The voice continued. "Don't grow up to be someone else. Find your own way."

He lowered his head to the ground, allowing his hair to cover his face, and he shut is eyes.

I see.

It _all_ makes sense now.

His dad and the others, _weren't_ defenders of the planet.

They _weren't_ protectors.

His dad was a _martial artist_. He had trained all of his life to fight others in _fair_ , one-on-one spars.

His dad wasn't a killer, and wouldn't _ever_ be one. He wouldn't stack all of the odds in his favor before a battle, even if doing so would greatly _increase_ his chances of winning.

Even if doing so would potentially _save_ every single life on the planet.

That was how his dad was brought up. To fight _fair_. He didn't _know_ of any other way. _That_ was why his dad never practiced _lethal_ techniques, or possible ways to sneak up on opponents.

His dad never trained in _stealth_ , _not_ because it didn't work, but because it wasn't _honorable_ to fight that way.

They were, all of them, his dad especially, _unsuited_ for the position that they were in. _None_ of them would do what was needed to keep the planet safe.

They _could_ fit the bill if they absolutely _had_ to, but they weren't meant for it.

 _That_ was what the voice meant by the planet not needing another fighter.

When the saiyans arrived, the planet needed someone that would be willing to _kill_ them, if it came to that.

And it _would_ , in all likelihood, come to that.

If the saiyans were defeated, and then allowed to leave, they would get stronger and come back, without a doubt. Possibly even, with allies.

The Dragonballs were just _too_ enticing a target.

Other races of powerful warriors, if they existed… and they had to be out there, would hear about how the people of Earth were _strong_ enough to repel the saiyans.

That they were potentially ready for _war_ on a galactic scale.

That was how _humans_ seemed to work throughout all of history. They didn't just _leave_ if they discovered a new land with people living there, even if they were beaten back in a war. They _always_ came back with a bigger army.

There was _no_ reason to believe that aliens would be any different.

The saiyans were a prime example of this.

Earth survived the original saiyan attack. _Radditz_ , managed to call reinforcements. Now _more_ powerful saiyans were on their way.

We _can't_ allow the cycle to happen again.

If these next saiyans _fail_ in their invasion, who's to say that they won't contact someone even _stronger_ out there?

 _That_ was the nature of conquerors and explorers. If they _failed_ … send the next wave to try again.

If the saiyans came to Earth, they _could not_ be allowed to leave.

They would either succeed in their invasion, or they would die. That was how it _had_ to be, to ensure the safety of the planet.

But could _he_ do it himself?

Would _he_ be willing to kill them, if the opportunity arose?

 _That_ was the big question.

And he couldn't answer it yet.

He opened his eyes once again.

The fog had cleared a small amount, and he could barely make out the outline of a figure, deep within it. This one was taller than the blonde saiyan was, but his features were still mostly blurred.

"If you take away nothing else, remember this. _Nothing_ is impossible to achieve with your abilities. And I don't mean that in the clichéd 'you can do anything you set your mind to' way. I mean you can _literally_ create _any_ technique you can imagine. You just have to work out _how_. If you don't believe me, just look at your sword."

Gohan's eyes widened in realization, and he transferred his gaze to the sword, still stuck in the ground.

Piccolo had created it from his own _energy_ somehow.

The implications of that were staggering. Being able to create _anything_ out of thin air…

There were _so_ many possibilities.

Could it be used on a small scale? Could it be used to create electronics? Could it be used to create _artificial body parts_ , to heal people that would otherwise _die,_ from a disease, or otherwise _critical_ injury?

Could the technique be used to _heal_ amputees?

He'd have to ask Piccolo to teach him how to do that.

He glanced back into the fog, where he could still see the outline of the figure. Squinting, he was barely able to make out the fact that whoever it was, had long, _lavender_ colored hair.

He only managed a cursory glance, before he felt a familiar hand touch his back once again.

Then the world _blurred_.

* * *

Gohan abruptly jolted awake.

The first thing he noticed was that he was still in his cave.

The sun was shining through the cave entrance, signifying that it was morning once again.

That had been the most vivid dream that he had _ever_ had. It had felt even _more_ real than the one he had had about Piccolo on his first day out here.

And just like _that_ one, it changed his opinions on essentially everything.

He had a new role model. He wanted to be able to move around like he had seen that blonde saiyan in his dream move. That saiyan had moved _exactly_ as he had envisioned his stealth training would eventually allow _him_ to.

He wasn't going to doubt if it was possible to move like that anymore. He _needed_ to start his stealth training again.

He _had_ to make it work. He absolutely _refused_ to fail, now that he had seen it in action.

There were a ton of new revelations that he had made as well. His faith in his dad had taken a hit, and he needed to rethink a lot of different things about his life.

He was unsure about how he felt about… pretty much everything.

He'd create a new training plan today, and start trying to figure out how to work with his newly unlocked Ki.

His stealth training was back on the list without a doubt. He never should have doubted himself in the first place.

He needed to learn how to use his Ki in a way that would allow him to _kill_. And he needed to come to terms with having to do _exactly that_ when the time came. He doubted that his dad, or anyone else would.

But it _needed_ to be done. And if no one else would, then he would _have_ to do it himself.

He nodded, satisfied with his current course of action. He reached over to his right, where he usually left his sword when he slept… only to find that it wasn't there.

He glanced over to where his hand was, and sure enough… no sword.

He started looking around the cave frantically, searching for any sign of it… to no avail.

His sword was _gone_.

What?

Where the heck did it go? Did he leave it _outside_ or something?

He walked over to the cave entrance, and walked out into the sunlight.

He started searching around the clearing for any sign of it, but he just _couldn't_ find it _anywhere_.

He remembered having his sword with him when he was trying to unlock his Ki. It was _inside_ the cave with him at the time. He was _sure_ of it.

He walked back into the cave to see if he missed it during his search.

After turning over every stone, and even going as far as lifting up his bed to check underneath, he let out a sigh of frustration. He _couldn't_ find it.

He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. That was when he noticed something strange.

There was dried _blood_ on his finger.

Bringing his hand up to his face, he examined the wound more thoroughly. There was a dried cut on his right, index finger.

A cut in the _exact_ same place as the one he had given himself in the _dream_ from last night.

His eyes widened in surprise for a brief moment before he let out a chuckle. He must have reached over, and grabbed the blade in the middle of the night while he was asleep.

Wait…

Only, the blade wasn't anywhere near him.

He frowned.

Maybe he cut his hand on a rock instead?

He glanced around the cave. There were _no_ bloody rocks _anywhere_ to be found. There weren't even any _sharp_ rocks in the area.

 _'Okay, what's going on?'_ He was starting to get concerned.

Was _that_ somehow, _not_ a dream?

It _had_ to have been one. That was a _saiyan_ in his dream. One that just so happened to be able to move _exactly_ like he himself had wanted to.

 _Any_ explanation was more likely than yesterday's events being real.

His mind started whirling.

Maybe, during his sleep, he reached over and grabbed the blade of his sword, cutting his hand. Then, at some point during the night, for some reason, an animal of some sort crawled into the cave, and took his sword out into the woods somewhere.

Why an animal would do this he had no idea. But as unlikely an explanation as it sounded, it was _still_ more likely than meeting saiyans capable of moving across the planet in an instant. Ones who seemed to know _everything_ about his life, who his dad was, what his opinions on most things were, and exactly what to say, to make him change those views.

He ran back outside into the clearing, to the same spot he had been standing in his dream.

His dream was pretty scarily accurate when it came to the treeline in the distance. It looked almost _exactly_ the same.

Taking a few steps forward, he looked down, and focused on the ground.

This was the exact spot that the saiyan in his dream had arrived at.

He knelt down, and looked closely at the patch of grass. There were _no_ discernible footprints of any kind.

He frowned in thought.

That could either mean that his dream never happened in real life, _or_ that the saiyan he had ' _met'_ had been _so_ skilled in stealth, that he didn't leave any tracks when he moved.

But there had been _another_ saiyan. At least, someone who was probably a saiyan. The guy in the fog with lavender hair was probably the same guy as the first figure that he had seen in the woods. Maybe _he_ left tracks.

He _had_ to know for sure.

Getting up off the ground, he ran towards the treeline. Towards the exact spot that he had seen the guy appear in his dream.

He stopped when he was in front of the _exact_ tree that he had seen the guy step out from behind of.

He examined the ground again. He couldn't _see_ anything that jumped out at him –

Wait.

There _was_ something here.

Something _had_ been walking here, he could see the tracks. They were faint, but he could still see them. He wasn't skilled enough at tracking to be able to determine whether it was a saiyan or not, unfortunately. It could have easily been an animal. But it still sent a chill up his spine.

If he wanted to dismiss what happened last night as a dream, then he had to believe that _first_ , he cut his hand on his sword in the middle of the night, the same sword that _somehow_ , was moved _out of the cave_ while he was asleep, to a _still unknown location_ , _and_ by an unknown means, and to top it all off, a random animal _had_ to have been walking in the _exact_ spot as the figure in his dream.

All of these things _were_ possible, even in succession like that, but it was starting to look pretty unlikely. But the only alternative was practically _impossible_. Those saiyans in his dream _knew_ him. They _knew_ his thoughts. They couldn't have _possibly_ been real.

 _Something_ had happened last night that he was currently _unable_ to explain.

That was the _only_ thing that he could really conclude.

How frustrating.

Maybe he'd figure it all out when he found his sword again.

Standing back up, he gazed off into the forest.

It couldn't have gone _too_ far right?

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	8. Chapter 8: Problem Solving

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story. If you see any problems, things you like, or things you hate anywhere, feel free to let me know. I do my best to read and respond to all private messages and reviews. Sometimes I overlook _obvious_ problems in this story by mistake. Fixing these types of problems is, in fact, the _main_ reason why this chapter was so difficult to write.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

It had taken him another _two_ weeks to learn how to move to a degree that he deemed as acceptable. He was just over a month into his training now by his count.

The past two weeks had been strange. He had originally expected it to take a lot longer to get to the point that he was at now in his stealth training, based on his previous failed attempts at it.

He was trying to unlearn all of his bad habits when moving around after all. Habits that had been thoroughly ingrained into his muscle memory ever since he had first started to walk.

Well…

Not as thoroughly ingrained as he had originally expected, to his genuine relief.

He had been lucky.

Lucky to start out this type of training at such a young age.

He had only taken his first steps somewhere between three and four years ago after all.

As a result, it was not _nearly_ as hard as it could have been, re-learning how to move, had he started this type of training when he was much older and more used to clumsily moving around like normal people did all the time.

His being so young, meant that inefficient movement wasn't ingrained into his muscles as deeply as it could have been.

He had never been so grateful to be a kid.

He had finally been able to break past the barrier that had been preventing him from making any progress.

The key had been in his Ki all along.

Who knew?

Ever since he had unlocked his Ki, his training had become a _lot_ easier. He was pretty sure that he was unconsciously pumping Ki into his limbs during his movements all the time now. He couldn't _feel_ it flowing through him, so he had no way to be sure, but it made sense. At least, that was the only explanation that he had for being able to do some of the things that he could now.

He was _way_ faster than any kid had a right to be for his age, according to some of the books that he had read in the past on what the body was capable of. At least, he was much faster than a _human_ child anyways. Heck, he was probably faster than every single human on the planet that wasn't a martial artist.

It would make sense that due to his _saiyan_ blood, and Ki, he would be naturally stronger and faster than humans were, but it was still surprising to experience it himself.

Even just over a month ago, he would have never considered it possible for him to be able to move around like _this_.

He would have never guessed that _he_ of all people had what it took to become a fighter. To gain this level of strength, and so quickly at that…

So much had changed since then.

He could feel the wind on his face from how fast he was moving. It was incredible.

His training _worked_.

With his Ki unlocked, it hadn't taken long at all for him to start making visible progress once again.

His body had adapted to its new movements after only _two_ weeks of moving around like a yoga instructor all the time.

It was a bit embarrassing what he had to do, but he couldn't deny that it ended up working.

He could only hope that nobody had been watching him. They would have probably been wondering what was wrong with him if they had been.

He had taken his training _absolutely_ seriously, regardless of how ridiculous it probably looked, putting a _huge_ amount of concentration into each movement. Even simple moves like walking.

 _Especially_ simple moves like walking.

On more than one occasion, he had spent an entire _day_ just walking through the forest with a look of, what had to have been, utmost concentration, on his face. Listening to the sounds of his footsteps, and abruptly stopping every time he had made too much noise, or made a movement that he deemed wasted _too_ much energy.

He didn't have a designated time for stealth training.

He was _always_ stealth training.

Every time he made a movement, from sitting down, to standing up, or jumping, or climbing, or even collecting berries, you name it… if he moved at all, he was putting forth his _best_ effort to be as quiet, and controlled as possible.

Even at the cost of having to take _way_ more time than usual, to accomplish menial tasks.

It was mentally taxing at first, concentrating all the time like that, but he needed his new movements to become instinctive as fast as possible, so it _was_ necessary.

He was actually getting pretty close to that point now.

It had required discipline that he hadn't realized that he had, though.

He had almost lost his patience with it. But, he would always remember what happened during his first attempt at stealth training when he did, and how he had failed miserably due to his irritation, and then he would force himself to relax once again.

He had seen what true stealth was in that _dream_ of his, and he wanted more than anything, to be able to replicate it.

 _That_ was his goal. The first one on his path to the saiyans.

And he had made a lot of progress to that end.

Every day, he got just a bit closer.

He jumped over the incoming log in his path, and winced at the sound of his landing, before immediately continuing his sprint through the clearing.

His _soundless_ sprint.

He had worked out how to do it a few days ago. He could run now at almost top speed with minimal mistakes. He would still screw up occasionally, but it was becoming more infrequent as the days passed. His _landings_ on the other hand, still needed some work.

It had taken _hours_ , upon _hours_ , to create the _perfect_ sprinting posture. Hours of making minute adjustments until it felt perfect, while still remaining silent and efficient.

There were so many factors that had to be taken into account.

He used to run with his back, for the most part, straight up and down, perpendicular to the ground. He used his legs to push himself forward, his arms moved back and forth for both balance, and to get a slight boost in speed, and he would always land on his feet _heel_ first, before transferring his weight forward, to his toes, in order to shift his momentum in preparation for the next step.

From what he understood, that was, for the most part, just how people ran. He had even seen his dad run in a similar fashion whenever he had been training around their house. Only, knowing him, his dad had probably modified _his_ posture somehow to achieve greater speed, and to allow easy transition into martial arts techniques, but it still looked _very_ similar.

There was nothing _wrong_ with running like that per se, but it was unsuitable for people who emphasized _stealth_ over speed, like him.

Speed wasn't all that important to him at the moment. He knew that he would get faster in time. But _most_ people practiced running to get faster, not quieter. And as a result, they could afford to run that way.

It was not silent by any means though, so he had to completely change his posture.

He had started with his _feet_ , since landings were the main source of sound in his movements.

He _used_ to take each step in a heel-to-toe movement. It was loud and uncoordinated, and didn't suit his needs at all.

When people wanted to be quiet on their feet, they did the exact _opposite_. They took each step in a toes-to heel movement. Sometimes not even using their heel at all.

Tiptoeing.

It allowed for greater control, and generated _far_ less noise than regular walking did.

The reason for the difference was actually quite simple.

When someone landed _heel_ first while running, they essentially slammed _all_ of their body weight down at once. This created a _lot_ of noise due to the abrupt deceleration of their body.

At its simplest, it could be broken down into basic _force_ equals mass times acceleration. The second law of motion. In simple words, bigger acceleration, equals bigger force.

Or in _this_ case, _sudden stop_ equals _lots of noise_.

The force from impact, is directed into the ground through the heel _suddenly_ , where it, in turn, is directed into the movements of the air.

The force is hardly distributed through the muscles properly, and instead, is distributed into the ground, quickly turning into sound.

 _Then_ , the person transfers their weight forward onto their toes. Long _after_ the impact sound has been produced.

Noise is generated, and _then_ the weight is transferred.

Toe-heel movements _reverse_ the order of these events.

If they are on their _toes_ , they are able to _gently_ lower themselves down to the ground over a _much_ longer period of time. The force from their impact with the ground is distributed better due to the additional muscles being used.

There were new muscle groups being utilized in the feet, the ankles, and the calves, in _addition_ to all of the other muscles used when running normally.

The body doesn't suddenly _stop_ , when it makes contact with the ground this way.

All of that extra energy that would normally be transferred into the movements of the air, as sound, is _instead_ , transferred into the muscles of the body during the weight transfer.

The person lands on their toes, then _immediately_ starts to transfer their weight to their heel. During this transfer, the body is _slowing_ down in its descent, possibly even to a _stop_. The main source of noise doesn't occur until the _heel_ contacts the ground, if it ever does, halting any leftover, downward movement.

Long _after_ the body's muscles have already _distributed_ most of the impact, if done right.

A controlled, slow paced stop, over a longer period of time, equals very _little,_ to _no_ noise generated.

The body has to work slightly harder, but most of the sound is eliminated.

Which was _exactly_ what he needed.

So he had to modify the positions of his feet during his sprint so that he always landed _toes_ first every step, _then_ distributed his weight to his heel.

But _that_ created some problems in itself. It was much too awkward trying to run with any kind of speed while on his toes, with the way he _used_ to run, so he had to make _further_ modifications.

He needed his running posture to feel perfectly natural, while _encouraging_ toe-to-heel weight transfer.

His next change came from thinking about a set of stairs weirdly enough.

Walking up a staircase was the only time that it had ever felt natural for him to take each step toes first. In fact, walking up a set of stairs _heel_ first in each step was the movement that felt awkward.

All he had to do was figure out _why_ that was the case, and reproduce it.

A problem which had been relatively easy to solve as well.

If he were to imagine two vectors, one drawn from his tailbone, up, and through the top of his head pointing into the sky, and another drawn in his overall direction of travel, he was able to clearly outline this difference by looking at the angle between them.

It had only taken a quick diagram in the dirt to see it.

When he walked normally, the angle between these two imaginary vectors was almost _exactly_ ninety degrees. It was a bit less than that _technically_ , due to him leaning forward a small amount while walking, but it was close enough for his purposes.

When he walked up a set of stairs however, this angle was _much_ less than ninety degrees. It was actually closer to forty five.

 _That_ was the distinction that mattered.

When this angle was significantly _less_ than ninety degrees, as it was on a set of stairs, toes-to-heel weight transfer felt natural, so all he had to do was figure out how to replicate this while he was moving on _flat_ ground.

And it didn't take him long to recognize that all he had to do, to do this, was lean _forward_ a good amount while he was running. That way, from his perspective, it would _seem_ like the ground was slanted upwards like a set of stairs.

In fact, all he had to do to notice this, was look at the picture that he had drawn, and then tilt his head a bit.

Basic relativity.

From his _new_ point of view, it would _seem_ as if he were constantly running up a ramp, or set of stairs, rather than on flat ground, when in reality, all he was doing was looking at things from a different perspective.

The angle in question would be decreased below ninety, by _lowering_ the angle of his _back_ , rather than by _raising_ the angle of the _ground_.

So that's what he did.

And it _worked_.

All he had left to do, was leave his arms outstretched behind him to prevent himself from falling forward onto his face, due to his forward lean.

Tilting forward didn't change the direction gravity pulled him in after all, so he needed his arms behind him to act as a counterweight.

It felt completely _alien_ at first, trying to get all of the minute adjustments and balance issues down, but after a few hours of practicing, it got easier, and he eventually settled on a posture that felt right.

It was the one he was still using even now.

He would never recommend running like this to any ordinary person, however.

There was a _reason_ why you didn't see professional athletes running this way. A good reason. It was because it sacrificed a _lot_ of speed. If he didn't have access to his Ki, he _never_ would have tried to learn how to run like this, even if it _was_ quieter.

This method of running was not ideal for a regular person. Not even close.

It _was_ however, ideal for a person who didn't have to depend on their muscles alone, to get faster. He would eventually be using his Ki to not only make up for any speed loss that running like this caused, but to completely eclipse _anything_ a normal person could ever hope to achieve with muscular strength alone.

The speed loss from his posture would eventually be negligible when his Ki was reinforcing his movements, and he would be left with all of the stealth and control benefits that nobody else had.

Those weren't even the only advantages either.

Since he was landing toes first every step, and because he was leaning forward so much, it was much easier to make abrupt changes to his direction of travel. He was always in a position during his run that was able to transition into a leap, at a moment's notice.

Due to his posture, it felt as if he had more 'access' for lack of a better word, to the muscles in his legs, allowing for greater balance too.

His profile was smaller, which would _hopefully_ make it harder for him to be hit by attacks.

Since he wasn't swinging his arms back and forth all the time, he would never find himself in a situation where his arms were in a bad position to defend himself. If he were ever attacked while he was running, it would be harder for him to be caught off guard as a result.

Granted, he would concede that most of these advantages were so minimal that they wouldn't likely save his life anytime soon, but they were still valid reasons that made sense to him.

It _was_ a bit harder to abruptly stop though.

In his old running posture, he could just dig his heels into the ground to abruptly slide to a stop. He couldn't do that anymore as easily, since he was landing on his toes first, and leaning forward.

But he _could_ redirect his momentum elsewhere incredibly quickly due to the same reasons. He would have to rely on that instead. It's not like he _couldn't_ stop anymore. It just took a fraction of a second longer than it used to so that he could get into position.

He was also _technically_ more stream-lined and aerodynamic…

But _those_ were benefits that wouldn't actually be noticeable until he was fast enough for air resistance to play a factor in his speed.

He wasn't anywhere _near_ that fast yet.

His dad probably was, and the saiyans on their way probably were, but not him. Not yet.

But he was well on his way to becoming silent now.

Or as silent as he could possibly get anyways.

After zigzagging between a few bushes in his path, he frowned.

 _That_ was another thing that he had learned recently that bothered him. He was well on his way to being able to move properly all of the time without thinking about it, but he still wasn't _truly_ silent. He was much better off than he used to be _sure_ , but he was quickly approaching another barrier in his training that he had only been able to see coming, recently.

And he _hated_ those.

He could control his own muscles almost perfectly now, but there was still a limit to how quiet he could get, moving as he was.

He could still _hear_ the rustling of the grass as he ran, and the sound of wood if he ever stepped on a tree branch, or a log. _He_ could be as silent as he wanted in his _own_ moves, but as long as he made contact with the ground, he simply _couldn't_ be perfectly silent like the saiyan in his dream had been, no matter _how_ much he trained.

Even if he had _perfect_ movements, with _no_ energy waste, as long as there was contact between himself and the ground, there _would_ be noise. Not because _he_ wasn't distributing his weight properly, but because the things that he touched, _moved_.

That was simply the nature of energy transfer between objects.

It was physics. And no one argued with physics, _especially_ not, him.

He simply _couldn't_ silence the environment around him as he traveled through it, even if he was silent himself.

 _It_ moved when he did, and when _it_ moved, it made noise. The environment didn't care about his attempts at stealth.

And he couldn't get around _that_ unless he didn't touch the ground _at all_ somehow.

And he couldn't _not_ touch the ground, moving as he was _now_.

 _That_ was the next obstacle that he had to overcome.

He needed something _more_ added into his movements in order to take the next step in his stealth training.

And it just so happened that he had a brand new idea to do just that.

In a sudden bout of inspiration during his sprint practice a few minutes ago, he had come up with one of his greatest ideas _yet_ , if he did say so himself. At least, it _would_ be one of his greatest if it worked out the way he hoped it would.

It was currently untested though.

He broke into the fast approaching treeline, still at a sprint.

He had been practicing his running technique for the whole day so far, ever since waking up.

Just like yesterday, and the day before that.

He was much faster now than he had been when he was first dropped out here by Piccolo, but he still wasn't at the point where his new sprinting method surpassed his old one in terms of pure speed. It was just more efficient and controlled.

If he stopped focusing on keeping his exact running posture, he could _definitely_ run faster than he was now. But that would defeat the purpose of his training.

His new method would catch up in time, he was sure of it.

If he kept making progress at the rate he currently was, and if his new idea worked out, he wouldn't be surprised if he _doubled_ his speed by next week…

 _And_ eliminated the last traces of noise in his movements.

It _was_ an interesting idea.

It was completely theoretical at the moment, and he hadn't even attempted it himself yet, but he was currently on his way back to his cave so that he could.

He had immediately stopped what he had been doing and started sprinting to his cave the _moment_ he finished thinking through his idea.

He would always travel to his new home whenever he started working with his Ki. It always tired him out unbelievably quickly when he did, so he would always practice near his cave. That way, if he ever overexerted himself, he could just fall asleep on the spot.

It _had_ happened before…

He smiled.

It was finally time to create his first legitimate Ki technique.

He had played around with his Ki a few times over the past few weeks, running a few basic experiments, attempting to make a few energy balls and whatnot, but he hadn't really done anything significant with it yet. He had been too focused on his stealth training for that.

That, _and_ his stamina was still much too weak for him to succeed in doing anything even remotely impressive.

His new idea was unlike any of his previous ones though.

This was the first time where his Ki training, and his stealth training, would intersect with each other, and he couldn't wait to try it out.

It would train everything all at once if it worked. That was what made it so brilliant. It would increase his stamina, his Ki reserves, his control, his stealth… everything. _All_ at the same time.

It would be an ideal situation for training, and he wanted to incorporate it into his training plan as soon as possible.

Jumping over another large bush in his path, he paid extra attention to his landing, to ensure that it was silent.

He had, roughly, a fifty percent success rate on these.

He landed, satisfied, before continuing on.

Frowning, he spared a glance down towards his legs.

He was starting to feel the burn in them again.

His muscles were still slightly adjusting to their new movements. As a result, _they_ were getting sore before _he_ himself, tired out.

He was only a few minutes out though, so it hardly mattered.

In fact, the infamous _tree_ that had caused him so much confusion was just up ahead.

He used the tree as a sort of marker now, since he recognized it so easily. Whenever he saw it, he knew that he was close to his cave.

It was the same tree that the black figure had been walking behind in his _dream_ , a while back.

His thoughts quickly changed directions.

Yes…

The _dream_.

At least, that's what he wanted to refer it to, as.

Perhaps _experience_ fit what had happened, better.

He still had no real explanation for what happened that night, despite all of the time that he had spent thinking about it. He hadn't had another experience like it since then, either.

No more vivid hallucinations, no more black figures, or eerily quiet surroundings… it was like none of it had ever happened at all.

If it weren't for _one_ specific detail, he would have written the whole situation off as just that. A _dream_.

He had searched through the _whole_ forest, but no matter how hard he tried, he _still_ never found his sword again.

At this point, he had pretty much given up hope of ever finding it again.

He had gone as far as trying to track down that foggy clearing with the strange looking trees again. He still vividly remembered what his surroundings had looked like when he dropped his sword in the dream. But, as he expected, he never saw any location even remotely similar to it during his search in the forest.

He had never seen a place like it in his life. Not even in the forests around Mount Paozu.

It made him wonder how his subconscious mind had come up with it if it _was_ a dream.

And he still wanted to believe that it _was_.

It just had to be.

 _And_ that, some animal had to have just stolen his sword in the middle of the night, ignoring all of his leftover food in the process for some reason.

It was the most likely scenario that he could come up with, but it was still riddled with problems.

He had briefly considered that it might have been Piccolo, but he couldn't think of a single reason for Piccolo to take his sword _back_ , after giving it to him only a month ago.

He was missing something in his theory, but he had no idea what it could be.

It was a mystery.

One that he both loved, _and_ hated, since he still couldn't solve it.

He ran passed the tree in near silence, only sparing it one final glance as he did.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts

He was nearly home now.

He could _feel_ the wind that brushed against his face from his sprint, increase in intensity slightly, as he broke away from the treeline, out into the wide open clearing leading up to his cave. The wind created a constant, low pitched, _whoosh_ in his ears as he sprinted through the open clearing at a constant pace.

It was early afternoon, judging by the position of the sun. He still had a few hours left to spare, before he had to go out to get his dinner.

A few hours that he was going to use to experiment.

He came to a stop in front of the cave entrance.

He _really_ hoped that his new idea worked.

* * *

He heaved a sigh of _relief_ as he collapsed back down onto the cave floor after another exhausting attempt, at his new technique.

He needed to take another quick break before he tried _that_ again.

He still had a hard time trying to reconcile just how weak he was now. He had seen himself destroy _mountains_ in the past, but something as seemingly simple as _this_ , was giving him _way_ more trouble.

His stamina still needed a _lot_ of work.

His breathing and heartbeat were through the roof. He couldn't remember a single time that he had _ever_ pushed himself this far physically, in his life.

His eyes were _watering_ from the strain.

For a few moments, he had even idly wondered if he was going to throw up.

The feeling had passed though, thankfully.

It would have been annoying, having to clean up puke from his cave floor…

He closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing, but _failed_ to do so.

He felt like he had just ran a hundred marathons with his _dad_ on his back.

His dad after finishing an all you can eat buffet. Honestly, he ate way too much sometimes…

He shuddered at the imagery, before starting to laugh.

His lungs were _burning_.

He had _so_ much more respect for people who trained like _this_ all the time. Planning to get stronger, and actually _training_ to get stronger were _totally_ different things.

They were worlds apart.

It probably didn't help either, that this was his first time, pretty much ever, where he had trained himself to exhaustion.

His stealth training wasn't actually too physically taxing, all things considered. Not when compared to _this_ anyways. It was much more _mentally_ taxing instead, with all of the focus that was required.

But he was used to that.

He could focus on things and concentrate for long periods of time pretty well, but this physical conditioning thing, was _brutal_.

He could almost _feel_ his blood, churning around under his skin, as his heart frantically tried to keep up with the demands of his body.

But there _was_ an upside here.

Underneath the _layers_ , upon _layers_ , of exhaustion that consumed his _whole being_ , there was a new feeling.

One that he could really see himself getting used to.

The feeling of being _right_.

His idea _worked_ after all.

He couldn't sustain it for very long yet though. Due to having such small Ki reserves.

But they would increase over time, especially if he kept up this type of training.

After taking another moment to rest, he shakily managed to climb to his feet, heart still speeding out of control.

He needed to try it out at least _once_ more before he collapsed.

Getting into position, he stood at attention, on unsteady legs. His feet were side by side, in slight contact with each other. His back was straight, and his arms were at his side.

He took another deep breath, before closing his eyes once again, and repeating the same technique that he had been practicing over and over again, for the past few hours.

He concentrated, and drew on his Ki, a process that was beginning to get almost instinctual now, before slowly directing it to his feet.

He felt the familiar tingle and pressure build up in his feet, before he forced it out, directly into the ground.

A moderate breeze picked up in the cave, and he felt the strain on his mind intensify as he materialized his energy into the surroundings.

He tried to mentally 'grasp' as much of it as possible, and collect it all, in the space directly underneath his feet.

He visualized the shape that he wanted his Ki to create, and 'pushed' all of his manifested energy into it.

His feet slowly rose off the ground.

Immediately, he felt his body begin to protest, but he pushed on, through his building exhaustion.

 _This_ was the solution that he had come up with for his stealth problem.

Levitation.

He had noticed in the past that his Ki felt almost like a solid, when packed into a sphere. He liked to compare it to a water balloon when it was like that.

A water balloon that was much harder to break than usual. Depending on the density, and amount of energy, pumped into a ball of Ki, he could change its durability.

So after a bit of practice, he figured out how to make his energy _thin_ enough to not burn himself, _or_ the ground, when he used it, but still _thick_ enough for him to be able to stand on.

It seemed almost counterproductive at first glance. Practicing with his Ki so that he could make it weaker, rather than training it to be stronger…

It was _far_ too weak to be used in an actual energy attack when it was this thin… but that was ultimately, the point.

He was essentially _standing_ on a ball of his own Ki. One that was transparent, and harmless, due to how thin it was.

One that he could pump _more_ energy into from his _feet_ , if he needed to, or if he wanted it to expand.

The ball of Ki was even weak enough to leave the ground completely unscathed, despite resting on top of it.

His 'technique' produced the same effect as standing on an invisible air mattress, and then inflating it.

The 'mattress', was his mental manipulation of his energy, forcing it into a specific shape, and the 'air', was his Ki.

He manipulated his Ki to not be able to escape the 'mattress' under his feet, and he controlled his Ki flow to inflate it.

Pumping in more, or less, as needed.

However, due to the fact that he was incredibly new to this 'technique', and was still pretty new to Ki manipulation in general, his energy was constantly escaping his control, and producing a noticeable breeze in the air.

A breeze that he would eventually have to find a way to get rid of, if he wanted this technique to actually help him.

It wouldn't be very stealthy, running around with a massive blast of wind flying around everywhere he went after all…

The energy loss also forced him to have to constantly pump _more_ energy in, so that he could replace the energy that was lost.

 _That_ was the reason why he was so exhausted at the moment. He was wasting _far_ too much energy.

Something he would have to fix.

The more energy that he pumped into the 'container' he stood on, the higher he could levitate. The opposite was also true. However, changing his altitude also required him to control the shape of the 'container' with his mind. He was essentially standing on the 'container', and riding it up and down like an elevator.

So naturally, there was a limit to how high he could travel off the ground like this. Eventually, if he tried to go high enough, the 'container' would become too big for him to be able to focus on properly, and it would break apart, even _if_ he had enough Ki to fill a 'container' _that_ big.

But it didn't matter in the end.

He wasn't planning on using this technique as a method to fly. Heck, he still had no idea how he would even do that. He couldn't think of a single mechanism of using his Ki to allow himself to just take off and fly around like he had seen Piccolo do earlier.

It just didn't make sense to him how Piccolo was able to do that.

He _was_ going to end up learning _how_ later though. Possibly from Piccolo himself, though he would prefer it if he managed to figure it out himself before then…

 _Instead_ , he was going to use this new levitation technique on an incredibly _small_ scale.

He would learn how to control his energy better, so that he could prevent any noticeable wind from being generated when he was using the technique. _And_ he would have it active every time he took a step, so that he could remain just a _tiny_ amount above the ground. Enough to prevent contact, but not enough to be noticeable to other people at a distance.

He wouldn't touch the ground, so no noise would be generated when he took a step.

Stealth problem solved.

Once he mastered the technique, it would produce the same effect as running around everywhere, in a pair of giant shoes made out of foam.

…

Or… like a magnet, hovering above another magnet of opposite polarity.

 _That_ analogy probably fit better.

His Ki would be in use all of the time, so he would increase his reserves a significant amount by the time his new technique felt natural.

This technique also required a good amount of concentration to keep active, so he would be training his energy manipulation as well.

Learning this technique trained nearly every aspect that he currently deemed _valuable_ enough to train, in preparation for a fight.

That was why he had plans to practice this new technique as often as he could, even at the cost of draining himself of energy _completely_ , potentially multiple times per day.

Until he was able to use this technique _indefinitely_ with no effort, _or_ strain, he would be practicing it constantly.

Just like his movement training.

And if what he was currently feeling _now_ was any indication, his life was going to be exhausting as a result, for the foreseeable future.

But he was determined to see it through.

His concentration finally slipped, and the ball of Ki underneath him disintegrated, causing him to fall the tiny, less-than-two-inch distance, to the ground.

Immediately, he dropped to his hands and knees, and started taking deep breaths.

He wasn't used to using his Ki like this at all yet. He had used up almost _all_ of it during his practice session, and was exhausted as a result. Sweat was pouring off of his forehead, and falling in drops onto the ground underneath him.

He could barely even keep his eyes open anymore, he was so tired. Both physically, _and_ mentally.

Dropping the rest of the way to the ground, he slowly rolled onto his back, still struggling to breathe.

He decided right then.

He was just going to lay here for a while.

Maybe take a nap.

Then when he woke up again, he'd go find something to eat.

It took him almost ten minutes for his breathing to get back to something even resembling normalcy, and when it finally did, he passed out soon after.

Soaked, exhausted, sore, and lying in a pool of his own sweat.

…

He was _way_ too tired to care.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	9. Chapter 9: Starting From Scratch

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Piccolo was deep in meditation.

Even though his senses were able to extend _miles_ in all directions, the sound of the crashing waterfall right behind him, never reached his ears.

He had achieved a state of complete detachment from reality. It was the ideal state of mind to optimize the results of his current task.

Hovering a few feet above the surface of the water, he was mentally diving into his vast reserves of energy, getting a feel for it all, and increasing his control to even greater heights.

He had been at it for several hours already, ever since the sun came up in fact. And he intended to go for several hours more, before starting on his more physical training.

At least, that was his intention.

He would have continued too, had he not been disturbed by the _massive_ release of energy hundreds of miles off to his right.

The power was so intense that he could feel it from _here_ , despite its vast distance away. It was strong enough to immediately kick him out of his own meditation, and force him to focus back on reality.

His head snapped in the direction of the power surge, and his jaw almost dropped in shock.

He _definitely_ didn't like the way it felt.

It was at least _ten_ times stronger than he was now. Maybe more.

At least, that's what his first estimate was. It felt _angry_ too.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be on a rampage, based on what he could sense from here.

Worse yet, it was in the same general direction as the place he had left the kid.

He almost wanted to believe that it was Gohan finally accessing his hidden power somehow, but it felt _different_. It didn't _feel_ like the kid's power, not quite anyways.

When Gohan had released a portion of his hidden energy against that saiyan, Radditz, his energy signature hadn't changed. There was just _more_ of it.

A _lot_ more.

The energy signature of whatever this _thing_ was, was totally different. It didn't even feel _human_.

It did sort of feel like a _saiyan_ though.

He could never forget what _they_ felt like.

He summoned his Ki, and powered up, before blasting off into the sky, towards the direction of the surge.

He had to find out what this was, before it did too much damage to the planet.

And while he was at it, he should probably make sure that the kid was still alive.

* * *

Gohan was tired.

He didn't even want to open his eyes.

His muscles were still _incredibly_ sore. Much more than usual actually, now that he thought about it.

Despite almost destroying himself daily with his training, he could usually get up in the morning again, more or less ready for the next day. But for some reason, he just didn't want to move.

Maybe his air walking training had finally caused his body to just crash. Trying to _permanently_ hover above the ground was _way_ harder than it originally seemed to be, when he first thought up the idea, and he had been at it for over two weeks.

It was definitely getting easier every day, but maybe the consequences of his training just hadn't caught up with him yet, until now.

He let out a yawn.

Maybe he should take the morning off, and sleep in.

He was feeling pretty comfortable right about now. He'd be able to fall asleep again very quickly at this rate.

The sun was pretty warm in the morning too, which only made his decision _easier_.

 _Really_ warm.

It was nice.

…

 _'Hang on a second... Why can I feel the heat from the sun, inside a cave?'_

Now that his mind was beginning to think at least _somewhat_ rationally again, he could make out a few other irregularities too.

He could _feel_ the wind blowing. It was making a weird noise too. The sound reminded him of the sound of his mom cooking. The water and oils that steamed off of his mom's frying pan when it was in use, made a _sizzling_ sound, not unlike the one he was hearing now.

A sound that was coming from seemingly everywhere at once.

Odd.

His bed didn't feel like it usually did either, and was that a light?

He shifted his weight slightly.

 _'OK, problems.'_

He knew something was _definitely_ wrong, the moment he moved his leg and felt _sand_ grind against it.

Against his _bare_ leg.

His eyes snapped open.

The first thing that he noticed was that it was bright out. He could see the sky.

The sun was up, there were almost _no_ clouds in the sky at all, he could see the moon in the distance, half obscured by the horizon and still lowering, and he was in a crater.

 _Naked_ too.

…

 _'Wait, what?'_

He shot up into a sitting position.

Sure enough, his clothes were gone completely. He was in a huge crater at _least_ ten meters deep, and everything around him was just _gone_. What was left of his surroundings was _smoking_ like it had just been laid to waste by the hand of _god_.

The forest was gone, his cave was gone, even huge chunks of the ground were gone.

For a moment, he had no idea what to even do. He was so _lost_.

That was when the panic set in.

He jumped to his feet, immediately sprang to the side of the crater and climbed out as fast as he could, not even caring that he never once touched the ground due to the results of his recent stealth training.

He stood at the edge of the crater, still hovering a small, unnoticeable distance above the ground, and got a better look at the surroundings.

Everything was flat. Mostly.

There were large boulders interspersed between what looked like _hundreds_ of massive craters across the landscape, in _all_ directions, but other than that, all signs of nature were gone, and the ground looked relatively level.

The forest area was a wasteland, devoid of all signs of life.

 _'Is this another dream?'_

He really hoped that it was, because he didn't really know what to do now, if it wasn't.

 _'OK, OK, calm down before you hyperventilate. This is probably just another dream. And even if it isn't, panic won't do you any good at all.'_ He thought to himself, after noticing how fast his heart was beating, and how his breathing had picked up.

He closed his eyes, and took several deep breathes of air to try and calm down, before opening them once again.

As he feared, _destruction_ greeted his gaze again.

So, this was either one of those incredibly vivid _dreams_ like the one he had with those saiyans, or this was _real_.

He took another deep breath, and calmed his mind.

He needed to think about this logically. After once again getting into his usual mindset, it only took a moment for him to collect his thoughts.

He definitely didn't want to bank on the fact that this was a dream and do nothing, when his life could be in danger.

No, he needed to treat this like it was reality. That way, if he was actually _dreaming_ , he would wake up like nothing happened when it ended, but he would still be prepared in the case that it _wasn't_ a dream.

 _'OK, so I have to start completely from scratch. I have no food, no shelter, no clothes, and there could very well be some dangerous being, or monster lurking around somewhere that destroyed everything…'_

Maybe there was a military base nearby that launched a nuclear weapons test? That could be another possibility.

A test that he somehow survived out of, presumably, sheer luck, and one conducted on a forest full of wildlife.

He didn't want to think that people would actually do something as unnecessarily cruel as that, but then again, his dad had told him about the old Red Ribbon Army, and what _they_ were capable of at their worst…

A military bombing raid was probably more likely, judging by the presence of _several_ craters, rather than just one big one, but that theory still had the same problems.

There was no reason to just level a forest in a weapons test when there were uninhabited wastelands just a few miles from here. They would make much better testing sites.

And if it _wasn't_ a test, what around here could possibly be valuable enough to warrant such destruction?

His stomach let out a growl, cutting off his current train of thought and prompting him to look down.

 _'Prioritize…'_

He needed to find food, but water and shelter needed to come first. He was hungry, but he could survive without food for a few days, weeks even if it got _that_ bad, as long as he had water.

He needed clothes so that he wouldn't die of exposure too.

The events that caused the surroundings to look the way they did could be discovered later. In the unlikely event that a nuclear weapon _had_ detonated that he had somehow _slept_ through, he would be in an area _flooded_ with dangerous radiation and he needed to leave, _now_.

The same applied if there was a monster hiding somewhere nearby.

Whatever happened here, happened _recently_ based on the smoke rising from the landscape.

He had to get out of here.

Looking around frantically, he noticed a mountain range in the distance.

 _That_ was probably the best place to go first.

His best option for clothes at the moment would be to skin the pelt off of an animal like a lion or bear. He could also use that as a source of food.

He had access to his Ki now, so killing the animal shouldn't be too big of an issue. He was in a much better shape to survive on his own _now_ , than he had been a month and a half ago.

Mountains usually had sources of running water too. There may even be a forested area near it.

All of those things increased his odds of surviving.

It was really a no-brainer.

He turned, and started running at a moderate pace towards them.

It took him a few steps before he noticed that his footsteps were _more_ silent than usual. Looking down, caused him to smile. He was using his air walking technique, and it was noticeably easier to do _now_ , than it was _yesterday_. He hadn't even thought about activating it. He had done it purely instinctually. It was a good thing that he had too, because he was running _barefoot_ over a ground full of jagged rocks and who knows what else.

He had to be careful out here by himself. If he got a cut, he _could_ get an infection that would go untreated since he wouldn't know how. If he hadn't created this technique, his feet would have been cut into a bloody mess in no time, and he could have been in really bad shape.

His current situation wasn't as bad as it originally seemed, now that he thought about it. He had gotten himself into a routine over the past several weeks. One that he had gotten incredibly used to. Being forced to start over had caused him to panic, but it really shouldn't have.

He should definitely be wary of whatever had caused everything to just be leveled like it was, but he had been surviving on his own all this time. He shouldn't panic over losing everything. He could definitely do this.

He had done this before when he was much weaker, and he would do it again.

He would survive out here on his own.

He would survive this.

* * *

The sun was already on its descent in the sky, by the time Piccolo finally reached the area he had sensed the energy surge.

As he expected, he saw nothing but wide scale destruction. Destruction on a scale he hadn't seen since his final battle with Goku at the twenty third world martial arts tournament.

The energy surge had only lasted around ten minutes before it vanished again without a trace. That had been a few hours ago now.

Whatever this _thing_ was, it was strong. And quite big too, based on the fact that some of the craters looked like footprints.

But that was no longer his main concern.

When the energy signature vanished a few hours ago, he had briefly sensed the kid's energy in the same area. But it vanished soon after, exactly like the massive one did.

He had _no_ idea what was going on anymore. Were Gohan and this thing linked somehow? Or did the kid get killed by whatever it was?

He needed to find the kid's remains if _that_ was the case. He needed to know for sure what happened.

He had spent a good deal of effort on keeping the kid alive so far, so if whatever this thing ended up being, ruined his plans, he'd find a way to kill it.

Even if it was stronger than he was at the moment, he could tell that it was mindless, based on its rampage. It would only take one good shot to take whatever it was, down.

He could _feel_ the scowl form on his face.

He wasn't in the mood for this.

So many potential plans, gone in an instant.

He let out a growl of frustration.

He needed to start his search.

* * *

Bright blue's in the sky gave way to shades of red and orange, as the sun continued to dip lower, and lower, towards the horizon.

The few hundred meter clearing, surrounded by trees was empty aside from one single sabre toothed tiger, slowly making its way towards its home in the forest.

As it approached the treeline, it caught a scent that it didn't recognize. Closing its eyes, it raised its head and began sniffing the air, hoping to discover whatever it was.

It never opened them again.

The tiger didn't even feel the four foot wooden spike hit it, as it obliterated its skull in an instant.

The force behind the strike was tremendous. Far stronger than the threshold force needed for piercing the bones in the skull.

The tiger's skull wasn't just _pierced_ , even though the spike was used in a stabbing motion. It flat out _exploded_.

 _'Maybe that was a bit overkill…'_ Gohan thought to himself, as he stood over the remains of the headless tiger he had just brutally killed, mostly by accident.

He had searched for hours for a suitable animal that could provide clothing. This was the _first_ one he had found, so he hadn't let it slip away.

He had never been more grateful for his stealth training. It was absolutely _perfect_ for hunting. The tiger hadn't suspected a thing, despite the fact that he had been following it for almost twenty minutes.

He had sharpened a tree branch to use as a weapon, and stayed in the canopy of the trees, waiting for the tiger to finally approach. When it did, he had jumped it from above, putting all of his weight and force into the _point_ of his makeshift spear. He had even pumped a little Ki into it to make sure he got the job done.

He hadn't meant to hit it in the head, or to do so much damage. He was clearly a bit stronger than he thought he was.

He didn't know his own strength.

…

At least he had some clothes now.

…

And some food.

…

All he needed was a suitably sharp rock to use as a knife, and he could finally get what he needed, to stay warm.

It was incredibly uncomfortable running around naked all the time, even with nobody around to see him.

Looking up at the sunset, he figured he had another three hours before he had to be in a shelter of some kind to sleep for the night.

He frowned.

He needed to find another food source as well, at some point. He hadn't found any fruits, or nuts like he had in the last forest he had inhabited.

He had found a waterfall though that he was going to use for drinking water.

He picked up the remains of the tiger, and lifted it over his shoulder, before he started walking off in the direction that he had seen some jagged rocks earlier.

He had to get this done, before it got too _cold_ outside.

* * *

 _This_ , wasn't going to work as well as he had hoped.

Gohan had just finished tying his newly woven rope, into a makeshift belt, for his temporary clothing.

And that's exactly what they were. Temporary.

He hadn't had the time to properly tan the hide into potential clothing, so it was really poorly done. He had managed to clean it sufficiently, and he was wearing it with the fur to the inside, like he had read and been taught in the past, but he didn't have the time to dry it out properly, and he had to skip a ton of steps in the normal tanning process.

He would have to try again, over the next few days to make a better set of clothes.

But the ones he was wearing now would suffice. Hopefully. For _now_ anyways.

He took a seat on his newly made bed, next to his fire. He had made his new bed in the exact same way as his old one. Only, _this_ time, he didn't have a cave to put it in. He was under the stars directly now, but between the insulation provided by his bed, his fire, and his new 'clothes' he should be able to keep warm enough to survive.

Laying back on his bed, he started going over everything that happened in the day.

It _clearly_ wasn't a dream.

It never ended, so this was almost certainly, reality.

He had no idea what had caused his old home to be destroyed, or why he had managed to survive whatever it was.

All he remembered was waking up in the crater and then…

 _'Wait a second…'_

His eyes widened.

He just remembered something. He had woken up _twice_ last night.

He had woken up at his normal time in order to start his daily training. He had stepped outside his cave and then…

And then…

Nothing. He couldn't remember anything else after that.

Then he woke up again in the crater, several hours later.

It had been about noon when he woke up the second time, and he always woke up to start his training early in the morning. Probably around seven or eight in the morning.

He was missing almost _four_ _hours_ of his memory.

Yet _another_ mystery to add to his growing list.

How annoying.

Why did all of these weird things keep happening to him?

He had only been out here for a month and a half, roughly, and yet he was having vivid hallucinations, dreams, and unexplainable events blindside him on a near _weekly_ basis.

He took pride in his ability to solve problems, and yet, he was drawing blanks on _all_ of his current ones.

It was almost insulting. Like the world was conspiring against him, ensuring that he would be forever plagued with unsolvable mysteries.

His one weakness.

All of these new mysteries were _not_ helping him either. He already had so much on his mind _without_ them interfering.

He was still unsure about how to feel about his dad, and Piccolo, due to his recent revelations on what they had done, or _might_ have done. He had no way of knowing for sure that the information they had been given by his uncle about the _saiyans_ had been accurate, and he was constantly struggling with how to progress in his training.

Now he was without proper clothes, in a new location. He had no continuous source of food like he had before, either. It would take at _least_ another week, for him to get back to a position where he could finally start his training again.

So many setbacks happened in a single instant, without any warning at all to go along with it, or to help him prepare for them.

He hadn't expected to lose everything he had built up.

All of that effort, wasted.

 _'I guess…'_

…

 _'I guess, I'm just going to have to try again.'_

He refused to allow himself to break. Not after coming this far.

He'd get into another routine, and begin his training once again.

 _After_ he fixed his current clothing, and food problems.

And rebuilt everything from _scratch_ once more.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	10. Chapter 10: Food

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: I have no current update schedule for this story. This update took a while due to me having to study for upcoming school exams.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Piccolo had found _nothing_ during his search.

No saiyans, no giant monsters, no kids, nothing.

It was _infuriating_.

How could something of _that_ size, and with such a _huge_ power level just disappear?

To top it off, he hadn't seen _any_ evidence of the kid in the area either, despite having sensed him earlier. He would have found the kid's corpse if he was dead, so clearly, he was alive somewhere. But where?

He took another, _final_ , glance around the dark clearing. The sun had set _long_ ago by this point.

He had learned _nothing_ today, about what had happened here. It looked like he was going to have to start again, tomorrow.

He grit his teeth in irritation.

 _'No.'_

He _wasn't_ going to search again, tomorrow.

He had _skipped_ his daily training today, chasing shadows. He _couldn't_ afford to do that again. Not with the incoming threat on the horizon.

He had _no_ intention of spending another _day_ actively searching for that brat, and trying to figure out what had happened, because he needed to get as strong as possible, as fast as possible. He couldn't waste _any_ more time than he already had. So, he would probably just stay in the area for a while, and continue with his training.

If the kid couldn't survive on his own, then he wasn't worth the effort he was putting in to keep him alive, anyway.

Though he would admit, if only to himself, that there _would_ be a noticeable loss in their chances, if the kid _did_ die.

The kid's potential was just _that_ impressive. It was the _only_ reason he had made it so _far_.

He frowned.

He _did_ need to find the kid again at some point, but he could wait. He'd keep his senses open, and when he sensed the kid's energy again, then he'd know where to look.

Who knows?

Maybe the kid even knew what that _thing_ was.

He'd have to confront him about it.

* * *

Gohan's stomach let out another growl.

He was _really_ starting to get desperate.

He hadn't eaten in _days_ , and the last time that he _had_ eaten, it had only been a few berries that he had managed to find out of luck.

There was almost _no_ food in the surrounding area. He had checked everywhere. He had passed by plenty of poisonous plants and other berries that _looked_ edible, but he knew better from his books, and from his dad's lessons.

There was clearly a reason why there weren't many animals around. With so little to eat in the area…

The only one he had seen in the area to this day, had been the tiger he had killed a while back.

He must have gotten incredibly lucky to find even _that_.

He was still wearing the clothes that he had made from its fur, though they were _definitely_ falling apart now. It was probably only a matter of time now before they started rotting. He hadn't cleaned or tanned them properly after all, due to time constraints.

That, _and_ he had expected to _easily_ be able to find another animal the next day, to make a proper set of leather. A replacement set.

Needless to say, he didn't.

He was _really_ starting to get worried.

He felt another sharp stab of pain in his stomach that forced him to hunch over, and slow down to a walk.

He had _never_ been this hungry before.

It was the only thing that he could even think about anymore.

Food.

He needed it _now_.

He _had_ to keep going though.

Thankfully, after another moment, the sharp pain faded.

At least the pain only came in waves.

He straightened, and picked up his pace again.

He _had_ to be getting close by now.

He jumped over the bush in his path and continued his _silent_ run through the trees.

He had picked up some animal tracks a few hours ago, and was currently following them. Or attempting to anyways.

But he couldn't let himself make any noise. Just in case he was close enough to be heard by whatever he was tracking. He couldn't risk scaring them off. Even if his stealthy movement cost him _significant_ amounts of his already dwindling energy.

 _Air walking_ was a _massive_ Ki drainer after all.

He really needed this to pay off. If this was another dead end, he didn't know what he would do.

What _could_ he do?

What if there was nothing over here?

He _had_ only been able to obtain a general direction from the tracks earlier, and he hadn't seen any more, since. Maybe he had gone too far somehow, and passed them, or maybe he misread the tracks.

He was certainly no tracker, so it _was_ possible.

He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts.

They were clouded, and it was getting difficult to concentrate.

He was beginning to get light-headed.

Maybe he was making a mistake by running.

Should he walk instead?

He was getting tired.

 _So_ tired…

 _'No. I have to keep going. I have to catch up, it's the only way.'_

He couldn't risk whatever he was chasing, getting away.

There were dense trees and bushes on both sides of him. It looked like he was running through a hallway, from his perspective.

It had been like that for quite a while now. Everything looked the same as it had, thirty minutes ago. He probably wouldn't be able to find his way back to the bed that he had made, as a result. Not that that was a big loss. He didn't have anything of value back there. He'd just make another fire pit, and another bed, when he found a suitable place to stay.

 _And_ some food.

He took a quick glance up at the position of the sun. It was past noon now.

His stomach let out another growl.

He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

* * *

His eyes were drooping, by the time he made it out of the forest.

He had been running non-stop for almost the whole day now.

He was pretty sure that he would drop out of exhaustion, the moment he stopped moving.

He had been keeping an eye out on his surroundings, as he had been travelling, for any sign of berries or nuts, but he hadn't found anything.

There was no food in the whole forest. It was such a _huge_ contrast to the forest that he had lived and trained in, before.

Before it was _destroyed_ by something.

 _That_ forest had had more food than he knew what to do with. There was just _so_ much. Especially in that _one_ clearing of fruit trees, and berry bushes.

Every time he had ever been hungry back then, he'd just go to his favorite clearing. Or to the river to fish.

His mouth watered just thinking about it.

But there was nothing like that anywhere in this _new_ forest.

He hadn't ever realized how lucky he had been, before.

Running out of food hadn't even crossed his mind back then. Not before the last few days anyway.

The possibility was so _real_ now.

He spared another glance up at the sun. It was at least two o'clock in the afternoon now.

He slowed to a walk, and made his way out of the treeline.

Was he going to starve?

He froze, once he took a few steps into the wide open clearing in front of him.

There was a _lake_.

And there were deer. _Lots_ of deer.

He counted almost _twenty_.

Those animal tracks he had found were from a herd of deer passing through, apparently.

Why hadn't he seen any more tracks on his way, then?

What were the _deer_ eating?

Not that any of _that_ mattered now. He was already running towards them.

His exhaustion had _completely_ vanished in an instant, upon spotting them.

He didn't care about why they were there, or about the fact that they were just grazing. It didn't matter to him what they were doing.

They were his dinner.

They were _all_ his dinner.

* * *

He hadn't let a single one of them leave the clearing alive. He was faster than they were, especially now that he was desperate.

It had been surprisingly easy. It hadn't taken more than a few minutes. The body truly did incredible things when it needed food.

It was mostly a blur to him, thinking back on it. He hadn't even thought to make a knife for himself until _after_ he had ripped apart the first deer, cooked it, and ate it, all with his bare hands.

Now there he sat, in the middle of a now devoid of life clearing, with seventeen dead deer, and the bloody remains of an eighteenth, surrounding him, trying to figure out what just happened.

He looked down at his hands.

He was absolutely _soaked_ in blood.

Not _his_ , of course.

His clothes were _definitely_ ruined now. Not that they weren't ruined before…

He glanced at the fire he had made, and the makeshift spit he had made out of a tree branch.

He was _still_ pretty hungry.

He glanced around the clearing.

He needed another one.

He stood up, and started walking towards the closest deer.

Once he was full, he was going to make a knife to make things a bit easier.

Nothing else mattered until then.

* * *

He let out a belch as he finished his _third_ full deer.

He was full now.

He had _no_ idea how he was able to eat so much. He had eaten essentially, _three_ times his own body weight in deer meat. The volume of his meal, _far_ exceeded the volume of his own stomach.

Yet he didn't feel much heavier.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

There must be some _insanely_ effective metabolic process in all saiyans, in order to allow them to eat so much at once with so little negative side effects.

But even _that_ wouldn't fully explain it.

His dad came to mind especially here. _He_ could eat for hours at a time, and then get right back up and train.

After eating like that, _any_ saiyan should be too heavy to _move_ , let alone fight.

Saiyan eating habits seemed to violate everything he knew about conservation of mass. But, since it was pretty much _impossible_ to violate such a fundamental property of the universe, where did it all go?

There had to be _some_ sort of biological mechanism to explain what happened, right?

How could the mass from the food he just ate, just disappear?

Did it all get converted into Ki somehow?

And if it _had_ been converted, then where was all of this Ki, stored?

Did he have some sort of Ki _organ_ that stored his energy somehow? The same way his stomach stored food?

Why had he never asked himself these questions before?

He had never eaten so much at one time himself, but he _had_ seen his dad do _all_ kinds of seemingly impossible things in the past. Why had he never questioned any of it?

 _Nobody_ , no matter how great or powerful they were, could violate the laws of physics. They were constant and never changed under any circumstance. Any apparent violation that has _ever_ occurred in the past, has _always_ been able to be explained. Sometimes with a new scientific theory, others, with clever uses of familiar ones.

If a scientific theory is violated in _any_ way that creates a contradiction, then it is _wrong_ , and a new one needs to take its place. Or at the very least, it must be modified to account for the contradiction. A _single_ piece of irrefutable evidence _is_ enough to topple _entire_ theories, and shake the foundations of human understanding, to the core.

 _Especially_ if a theory as fundamental to science, as the conservation of mass, was violated.

But the laws of the universe _themselves_ , never changed. Only the _theories_ that try and make sense of those laws, did.

Not even his dad was exempt from them.

He may be capable of incredible things, some of which probably can't be explained _yet_ , with the current body of scientific knowledge on Earth, but that doesn't mean there are _no_ physical laws in place that govern the things that he can do. It only means that humans haven't observed those laws in action yet, or studied them in detail.

He looked down at his stomach.

It seemed as if _he_ had just violated the law of conservation of mass, himself. If he actually _had_ , then he had just inadvertently dealt a crippling blow to science. It would mean that every experiment _ever_ done to confirm that the theory was true, was at _best_ , not showing the whole picture, and at _worst_ , totally wrong.

Pretty much every scientific experiment _ever_ done, depended on this theory being accurate.

He was currently suggesting that _all_ of it could be wrong.

It was a bit disconcerting.

The odds of that happening were just so _small_ though. Small enough to realistically be called, _impossible_. Science was just _too_ effective of a system to discount its findings all at once like that.

It was _far_ more likely that this ' _violation'_ , wasn't a violation at all, and that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation behind it.

So what was going on here?

 _'I refuse to believe that the fundamental principles of physics, can be cast aside by observing my dad, eating dinner.'_

Maybe saiyans just had a metabolism _that_ fast and effective.

But then wouldn't that generate a lot of heat?

That, and he _himself_ didn't _always_ have to eat so much. In fact, most of the time, even after training, he could get by with just an average amount of food. The amount he would expect given a kid his age, training.

Nothing even _close_ to the amount he just ate.

Whatever the explanation _was_ , it was _far_ more likely that the theory of conservation of mass, remained _intact_ , and that the saiyan metabolism just had a clever way of _appearing_ to violate it, than it was for the mass of the food to just magically disappear.

Once again, it all came down to the fact that he simply didn't have the answer yet.

Maybe there were _no_ current theories in all of science to explain it yet. Or maybe he just couldn't think of one that did.

But an explanation _must_ exist.

There was _no_ such thing as an event without an explanation behind it. Even if we didn't have the tools or knowledge to ascertain _precisely_ what that explanation was, currently, an explanation _still_ existed.

It was yet another question that would probably plague his thoughts for the foreseeable future.

Great. _Those_ were really starting to annoy him.

But it looked like he was just going to have to deal with it.

Grudgingly, he added it to his already lengthy, mental list of unexplained events that he had witnessed.

He looked up at the sky, and let out a sigh. It didn't really matter now. He'd think on it later, when he didn't have work to do.

He was _definitely_ satisfied now. He wasn't hungry anymore, and he was full of energy. That's all that mattered now.

He had thought about what he needed to do now, while he was eating, and he more or less had a plan of action.

He still had a few hours of daylight, and he had a _lot_ of leftover meat. Meat that would quickly go to waste if it wasn't used.

Now, there _was_ a reason why he had killed _all_ of the deer, rather than only what he needed. He wasn't sure when he would eat again, so he had to be sure that he would have a stockpile of food, just in case.

He never wanted to run into a situation like _this_ again.

Now he just had to make sure all this leftover food was preserved properly, so that it didn't go bad.

He needed to dry it out, and preserve it.

To do that, he was going to make deer jerky.

At least, that was the plan.

Once again, he sent a silent thank you to his mom for forcing him to study practically every subject imaginable. Including wilderness survival, and luckily enough, the anatomy of various animals. Deer included. He would have probably starved if she hadn't forced him to do so.

He used to think that those subjects were useless and unneeded.

He didn't hold that opinion anymore, needless to say.

Before he could do anything with his deer meat, he needed a knife so that he could butcher it properly. He could probably use his hands again, just like he had on the previous deer he had eaten, now that he thought about it, but a knife would make things cleaner. Easier.

For _that_ , he would need to find a rock of some sort, and sharpen it.

He glanced around the clearing, and eventually towards the lake. There were _plenty_ of rocks around it.

He could probably make due with a sea shell of some kind too. It just needed to be sharp, and durable.

Jerky would solve his food problem for the foreseeable future, since it was easy to make, and lasted a while.

He just had to make a smoking rack near his fire pit, and hang the deer strips. They would dry out slowly over time, and the smoke would keep any bugs away. He just had to make sure the meat was far enough away from the flames so that it _wasn't_ cooking. That wasn't his goal. It would just spoil quicker that way.

Jerky, when prepared properly could last _months_. _Years_ in some cases.

That longevity was _exactly_ what he needed. And _cooking_ the meat wasn't the way to achieve it.

Jerky wasn't all that these deer were good for though. All of these deer could also solve his clothing problem.

He would tan the hides, _properly_ this time, and stitch them together with sinew.

He'd get the sinew by cutting the tendons out of every deer leg, drying them out, and pounding them into usable threads with a rounded stone. Then he'd just have to tie them together. Simple, but time consuming.

He'd use the _legs_ for tendons, since there was almost no usable meat in them. He could probably get some tendons out of the backs as well if he was careful about it.

He'd then start tanning the hides by scraping all the fat off of them, cleaning them in the lake, and drying them off on a stretching rack of some sort. He'd have to _build_ that first, then he'd leave the hides to dry for a few hours. Ideally, it would be a few days, but he was on a time constraint.

A more flexible time restraint than last time, but a time constraint nonetheless. He still had to use the deer brains to _oil_ the hides _before_ they started decomposing from being left too long, after all. The deer were dead, which meant bacteria were already in the process of breaking them down. There were also, likely, _plenty_ of predators in the region that would be attracted to the fresh scent of blood in the area. He had to finish up, before they got here.

He'd need to make a bowl for the brain mixture, probably out of stone. He was strong enough now to carve something like that with his Ki as long as he was careful…

Then he'd just have to boil each brain in some water, and scrub the hides down.

An animal's brain was usually enough to tan its own hide. A convenient fact that he was more than willing to exploit.

Then he'd leave the hides soaking overnight, before starting the _real_ work on them, tomorrow.

More stretching and beating the hides to soften them, and then finally, _smoking_ them.

If everything went well, he could start making decent quality clothes tomorrow afternoon.

And he would have a _lot_ of jerky ready by tonight.

He finally stood up, and took another glance around the clearing.

He needed to get to work.

He wanted all of the jerky finished, and all of the deer hides fully cleaned, and scrubbed with brains by the time he went to bed.

That meant he had to do a _lot_ of wood collecting, and construction, in the meantime. He had to build countless drying racks, _and_ jerky racks. He also had to figure out a way to store everything safely so that he wouldn't lose all of his meat to some passing animal in the middle of the night.

He let out a sigh.

Just _surviving_ was so much work.

It was times like _this_ that made him wish that he knew how to _make_ things, seemingly out of thin air like Piccolo could. He didn't even want to get into how _that_ process worked…

He took a deep breath, and let it out, to prepare himself for the several hours of work ahead of him. Then he started making his way to the rocks surrounding the lake.

He needed to make a knife, and a few other tools first.

He'd find what he'd need in those rocks…

* * *

 _'That's the last of it.'_ He thought to himself, after dropping the last arm-full of scrap meat into the hole in front of him.

He was _finally_ done.

It had taken even _more_ work than he had originally expected.

He had been working _hours_ into the night.

He had to build _twenty_ jerky racks to hold all the meat. They were more like jerky _walls_ actually.

They were essentially large branches tied together, with smaller sticks protruding outwards that stabbed into the meat, and let _huge_ amounts of it _hang_ , close to the fire.

 _One_ of the fires.

He had to build _five_ fire pits _exclusively_ for smoking the deer strips.

He had _so_ much food now though, so it was worth it.

It had all finished drying out a few hours ago, and he was now storing it all in temporary, makeshift _bags_ made out of large leaves that he found in the area.

There were a _lot_ of bags.

Making the stretching racks had been relatively simple as well. The hardest part had been finding all of the materials. They were made mostly out of branches.

Four large pieces of wood, made up a rectangular frame. He had made extra cordage out of tree roots, and various other plants that he had scavenged, which was used to tie the frame together, and hold the hide in place, under tension. He then had to poke small holes in the hides for the cordage to be threaded through.

Then he planted the rack into the ground on a stick.

He had eighteen of them in the area, each of which _had_ been holding a fully fleshed, and cleaned deer hide. A lot of them he had screwed up on, so they had some holes, but he could still use them.

He had taken them down only about an hour ago so that he could de-hair, and brain them, to prepare for his work tomorrow.

The rest of his time had been spent making cordage, tools, and making a natural glue stick using a recipe his dad had shown him involving tree sap, animal hair, and a few other improvised ingredients that he had found in the area.

It looked like a clump of yellow, hardened glass on the end of a large stick.

He was going to be needing a _lot_ of it tomorrow. It worked as a sealant, so he was going to be using it liberally, as waterproofing for _all_ of his new clothes, and for the sinew he had made earlier that would be used as stitching _for_ said clothes.

He had made another bed, and a lean-to shelter out of sticks and leaves. Right next to a _sixth_ fire pit.

The only problem that he had now, was the fact that he had no way of stopping any animals from getting into his food.

The only thing he could really think of to help, was to dig a hole for all of his deer scraps at the edge of the clearing, and fill it. Something he had just finished doing.

That way, if any animal came, they would be attracted to the hole in the ground first, _before_ his deer hides, and meat. Hopefully.

And, depending on what animals showed up, he'd get more food potentially. He was strong enough to take out a bear, or even a pack of coyotes, or tigers, if he had to, with minimal effort.

Then he could make even _more_ animal jerky.

He just had to hope that if any animal _did_ show up, they didn't go for his hides.

 _That_ would be annoying.

Tonight, he was at his most vulnerable after all. He couldn't do much in terms of storage, or protection, until the hides finished soaking.

Once he had all of his clothes and tools made, he wouldn't have to worry about leaving things out in the open anymore. It was why he had elected to work on everything at once. Everything would eventually be stored in deerskin bags that he would carry around with him everywhere he went.

It was _much_ easier to protect his things that way.

But until then, he had to defend the clearing from any would be predators.

At least until tomorrow anyways.

He turned around, and started walking back into the clearing, towards his shelter.

He had extinguished his fire pits near the center of the clearing that _had_ been used for jerky, and moved his jerky racks towards the edge of the clearing next to his shelter. They were reusable after all.

So were his stretching racks.

At the edge of the clearing, in the treeline, was his shelter, bed, and fire pit. The fire was lit, and surrounding it, were all of his racks and tools, stored and ready to use tomorrow, the rocks with all of his hides soaking on them, and bag after bag of deer jerky.

He kept all of it as close as possible to his shelter so that it was easier to defend.

He sat down on his bed, and looked into the fire a few feet away.

Above his head was a slanted roof made out of sticks and leaves. It wasn't water proof, but it would keep some extra heat in.

His animal scraps were on the other side of the clearing.

He finished all of the work that he could do for the day. He was ready for bed.

He let out a yawn.

He had kept his air walking technique up throughout the whole day. He could feel the strain still, even after deactivating it, but he was getting close to mastering it. The strain wasn't anywhere _near_ as bad as it had been when he had first started out with it. And he had definitely _decreased_ the amount of energy that he wasted with it significantly. He had reduced the wind that used to be generated every time he used the technique, to near unnoticeable levels, too.

He wasn't sure when it happened exactly, but sometime after he had woken up in the destroyed clearing several days ago, his technique had become significantly easier to perform. It was like something had just _clicked_ in his brain.

It was _exactly_ what he had been hoping for, and was a _huge_ step forward.

So much so, in fact, that he was going to need to come up with a new training plan again, soon. He had almost completed his current one.

He had a decent level of strength, and was approaching total silence. He needed to work on his flexibility still, and he needed to start learning how to make larger Ki blasts. He needed to keep working on control, too. Basic efficient movement was already pretty much ingrained into his muscle memory, but he still made occasional mistakes. Air walking had to be totally ingrained yet, too.

He wanted it _all_ to be second nature. He didn't want to have to think about his moves, _at_ all.

A lot of that would hopefully come after more time training though.

Hopefully, after tomorrow, if everything worked out the way he hoped it would anyways, he might be able to get back on track with it all, again.

He just needed to think up a new training plan before then.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	11. Chapter 11: Trial By Fire

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: This A/N was written on 2016-05-25, at 2:30 a.m. (For future reference)**

 **Sorry for the wait. A lot has been going in my life recently. Had to study for several exams during the end of April. There were also** ** _several_** **plot holes in the distant future of this story that I had to work out. They would have affected a few earlier chapters if I hadn't.**

 **They have been fixed.**

 **Additionally, throughout this month I've had several doctors' appointments, and pre-ops. In fact, in a few hours from writing this paragraph, I'll be undergoing surgery.**

 **Fun times.**

 **I'll probably be out of commission for a good while afterwards, as a result. I really don't know when the next update is going to be after this one. But I'd imagine that it will either be really soon, due to me having nothing to do except** ** _write_** **, while at home recovering, or later than usual due to how I'll feel and not having any motivation.**

 **Since I'm staying in hospital for a few days** ** _without_** **my laptop I won't be able to respond to any reviews or questions, if there are any, for at** ** _least_** **a few days.**

 **As a result of everything that has been going on during the last several weeks since my last update, I tried to get at least** ** _one_** **last update before my surgery, and I** ** _just_** **made it. I had to sacrifice a bit of editing time though, so there may be a few extra punctuation errors in this chapter.**

 **It shouldn't be unreadable though.**

 **Hopefully.**

 **If there are any significant errors, I'll fix them when I get back.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**

* * *

Ki was the weirdest and most versatile _thing_ that he had ever seen in his life, without question.

No matter how many times he had told himself exactly _that_ , over the last few weeks, he would always find another occasion to say it again.

He didn't have a lot of it yet. Not a lot that he could readily access at _will_ anyway. Yet he could still do so many things thanks its sheer versatility alone.

It was _beyond_ incredible, and it seemed as if its uses were limited _only_ by his own imagination.

He had discovered a while back, during one of his many experiments, that Ki could be used to _enhance_ the durability of an object if he ' _pumped'_ it into it, for lack of a more… _precise_ word.

Yet he hadn't really understood _why_. It was just something that had _worked_ , so he took advantage of it and moved on to other things.

Well…

It turned out that he had been _wrong_ all along.

Ki _couldn't_ be 'pumped' into an object like that. Or maybe it _could_ , but that _hasn't_ been what he's been doing up until now.

The difference between what he _thought_ had been happening, and what was _actually_ happening, was _very_ subtle to a simple observer. _Unnoticeable_ even. But it was still fundamentally different _conceptually_.

Though, a similar effect was produced all the same.

The object that he was 'enhancing' _guides_ his Ki.

His Ki, leaves his body through his hands, then wraps _around_ the object he was holding, on the _outside_ , forming a kind of barrier. His Ki doesn't ever _enter_ the object.

This barrier is _thin_ , and is maintained _solely_ through his own concentration.

The technique is performed by _willing_ his energy to become as small as possible around the object. As a result, it's thin enough that the basic properties of the object remain intact.

A Ki- _protected_ stick, still feels and acts like _any_ other stick, when you hit something with it. It's just harder to break.

The object isn't _altered_ at all.

Yet, it was impossible to directly see this difference with his eyes alone.

The _only_ reason he now knew the truth on this matter at all, was because his Ki barrier, that he had just been maintaining, had _shattered_ , yet the _stick_ in his hand that said barrier was protecting, _hadn't_.

 _That_ wouldn't have happened if the object's durability was simply _increased_ somehow.

He had put a _lot_ of energy into that barrier. At least, it was a lot by _his_ standards. A _huge_ amount of force would have been required to break through it.

He really should have expected that it _would_ have though, after doing what he just did.

He had acted on instinct.

And it was an _instant_ regret. He had known that things would go wrong the _instant_ before impact.

It hadn't looked like there was room to just _dodge_ the attack, though. In any case, if he had been a _second_ later in his defense, he'd probably be dead.

His brain was still _rattling_ from the shock wave of the impact.

He couldn't even tell what his orientation was anymore.

Which way was up?

The sun was glaring, then he saw the ground. Then the sun was glaring again, then the ground.

 _'At least I learned something new.'_

That was always a plus in his books.

He could _feel_ himself rag-dolling through the air, as his hearing slowly recovered.

A few moments later he could _see_ properly again.

And he was _still_ airborne.

He caught a glimpse of the ground as he completed _yet_ another rotation.

He was doing _front_ flips. And it was going to be a messy landing by the looks of it, if he didn't do something.

 _'Roll…'_

It was really the only thing he could think of. The ground was _too_ close for anything else.

He managed to raise his arm _just_ before he would have face-planted. His other hand was outstretched _far_ behind him. _Way_ too far away to be of any help.

He tucked his chin in, and managed to call upon his Ki to try and further protect himself.

His body tensed in anticipation for the impact, and he managed to form a transparent block of Ki on his outstretched hand. His air walking technique _might_ further minimize the impact force.

Even though he wasn't anywhere _near_ as skilled with using said technique with his hands, as he was with his feet.

He hit the ground _arm_ first, in a roll.

He felt the block of Ki on his hand _smash_ into the ground, and break apart. It had done its job.

His _shoulder_ impacted the ground next, and he executed a surprisingly decent _roll_ considering the circumstances.

Then he _continued_ rolling.

It took _several_ seconds, _multiple_ uncontrollable rotations, and a less-than-graceful penguin-slide, for his momentum to finally come to a standstill.

His arms were numb, but other than that, he _was_ moderately surprised at how _little_ that ordeal had hurt.

Maybe it was just the adrenaline numbing the pain, though.

He was laying on his stomach now, staring out into the distant treeline. It was a pretty nice day outside all things considered, judging by how peaceful it looked over there. The weather was perfect.

Huh. Where had _that_ thought come from?

Maybe he had rattled his brain slightly more than he had originally thought. A concussion perhaps?

After regaining some of the feeling in his _right_ hand, he found himself slightly surprised. He was _still_ holding onto the stick that he had been using to protect himself, a moment ago.

How had he managed _that_ feat, after being smashed into the ground and rolling around uncontrollably?

All of a sudden, the sun was blotted out by _something_ and he was engulfed in shadow. He already knew what the culprit was though. They had completely ruined his day after all.

The shadow was getting bigger, _fast_.

 _'Move.'_

He pushed off with his _left_ hand as hard as he could, _just_ managing to lever himself into a position where he could bring his feet up towards his chest, and into a proper launching position.

He planted his feet, pushed off the ground _hard_ , and _felt_ the wind from the strike as it breezed past, mere _feet_ behind him.

Due to the _angle_ of his jump, and his original _forward_ lean, he had forced himself into a _front_ flip to avoid an awkward landing.

He was completely upside down, mid-rotation, and facing his attacker, when his enemy's missed strike smashed into the ground.

He was feeling oddly _detached_ from this whole situation. He _should_ probably feel afraid.

A huge crash assaulted his ears. On instinct, he had raised his arms to cover his face. Uprooted sand, rocks, and debris pelted into his skin. _That_ had been a close one.

Completing his rotation, he landed on shaky legs, and severely off-balance due to the shock wave that he had just been hit with, mid-flight. He landed in a squat, and planted his free hand into the ground for added support.

Why had today gone like this?

He had _just_ managed to recover from an abrupt loss of home, and food supply. Now he had _new_ , home-made clothes, a _new_ food source, a _new_ home, and was back on track with his training. He hadn't provoked _anyone_. These _things_ just came out of nowhere and attacked him.

He had been in several battles with groups of tigers, bears, and even a few wolves over the last few weeks. Ever since he had first started leaving animal scraps on the outskirts of his clearing, in fact. Groups of predators would always show up every time he cooked something or started a fire, and he would always end up with more food as a result.

It was a pretty effective strategy that he exploited _shamelessly_. Those animals had been laughably easy to defeat, as well.

After a simple skirmish he was able to use _most_ of the meat that they left behind.

The leftover scraps would be left at the edge of the clearing once again, and the process would repeat.

As a result of this, he had _plenty_ of experience fighting off wild animals. _Most_ of them anyways.

Slowly, he stood up and reached his hand up to his ear. It felt _wet_ for some reason. He was pretty sure he knew why though.

 _'I'm bleeding.'_ It really _was_ expected at this point.

He looked up at his attacker and narrowed his eyes.

He had been prepared to fight _any_ wild life in the area, but he had _never_ thought that he would face a situation like _this_ in the middle of a forest.

He wasn't afraid, but he _was_ still at a loss about what to do.

He had read about T-Rex in the past. They were _incredibly_ aggressive, but mostly lived out in wide open areas. Plains, deserts, and the like. But forests? It didn't make any sense.

Why were they out here?

He wasn't ready for something like this yet. He _wasn't_ strong enough. If it had been a _single_ T-Rex, then maybe he could have killed it with a well thought out strategy, or with his superior agility and stealth. All it would have taken was a well-placed strike to a vital area.

He glanced down at the stick in his hand.

He had picked it up off the ground when he was first attacked so that he could do _just_ that. If he could have planted it through the eye, then this fight would have been over. It was _long_ enough to hit the brain if he drove it in with enough force.

It was his go-to strategy for when he fought against _bears_. It was an instant kill. Their hide was just _too_ thick for him to be able to take them down _quickly_ any other way.

Fighting a T-Rex, presented the same problem.

But it didn't matter anyway. There _wasn't_ just a single T-Rex to deal with here. For some reason, there were _eight_.

He had been _hopelessly_ outmatched throughout the fight so far. He had just _barely_ managed to _survive_ until now. If he hadn't picked up that stick earlier on…

He thought back on his fight. Specifically, to his attempted _block_ a few moments ago.

It had taken almost _everything_ he had, to block that tail-whip, and he had _still_ almost died.

His attacker suddenly _roared_ , then charged. The ones _behind_ it followed suit.

Gohan glanced to his left, at the nearby mountains. They were _really_ his only shot at this point.

So he ran on _silent_ feet, and he felt his body _instinctually_ align into his recently _perfected_ sprinting posture.

He had achieved _permanent_ air-walking only a few days ago, and he had _integrated_ the technique into his running posture. He didn't touch the ground _at_ all anymore except in a few select situations.

Namely, whenever he sat down, or went to sleep. Though _eventually_ , once he could perform the technique on _all_ areas of his body, he would try to have the technique active during _those_ times as well.

For no other reason than to see if he could.

He couldn't hear his own footsteps, and he had really started to notice how much energy he was conserving through his movement training.

It was _very_ evident now how much he had progressed, and how much his efforts were paying off.

Peering over his shoulder as he ran, he verified that _all_ eight of his pursuers were gaining on him. For some reason they were _all_ working together. He had never heard of a functioning _pack_ of dinosaurs before. They were usually too territorial to cooperate with each other. As likely to kill each other as they were their prey.

 _'But I guess there's a first time for everything.'_

As he approached the base of the _decently_ sized mountain, he started looking for a viable route up. He had to get high enough to be out of their reach. But since there were no solid platforms to rest on by the looks of it, he would have to climb to the _very_ top.

In order to prevent running out of energy by clinging to the wall too long, and then promptly falling to his death.

He spotted his first few hand holds just as he reached the base. Then he jumped, and finally dropped his stick.

He wouldn't be able to take it with him, despite how much he wanted to have a weapon with him. All he had on him at the moment, was a deerskin shirt, a deerskin shoes, and a pair of deerskin pants. All of his tools and equipment were back at the clearing, so he couldn't secure his would-be weapon to anything.

His momentum allowed him to take a full _five_ steps up the wall, in a vertical wall run, before taking a _leap_ upwards, towards a protruding rock.

Grabbing onto the first hand-hold he started climbing as fast as he could. He could _feel_ the rapid vibrations through the rock, of his enemy's thundering footsteps.

He had to go _faster_.

The vibrations were getting more intense. They were close now.

He jumped, and reached the next hand-hold just as the first of his pursuers reached the base of the mountain.

He heard a _massive_ roar of frustration, which prompted him to look down.

He was _safe_.

He was at a height that was nearly _three_ times what the T-Rex could conceivably reach.

But they weren't leaving. They were just _staring_ at him with hungry eyes.

They were probably going to try and wait him out.

Looking back up, he tried to spot the top of the mountain. If he couldn't go down, then he would just keep climbing.

It was a long way up, but he could manage it.

He _had_ to.

* * *

He was in trouble.

 _So_ much trouble.

There had been only _one_ option to escape from those dinosaurs that he could see. He hadn't been able to go around them, because they were faster than he was, and there were no nearby escape routes that he could use his superior agility to take advantage of. _All_ he could do, was get out of their reach by getting to a safe location as _high_ as possible. Climbing the mountain had been the only way to really accomplish that.

But the climb was difficult. It was _concave_. _Dangerously_ so, too. Meaning it started out as a gradual slope, before slowly jutting _outwards_. During a lot of his climb until now, he had been either upside down, or on a perfectly vertical cliff face. And with his slowly weakening arms due to his fight earlier and the damage he had taken, he was getting tired, fast.

The T-Rex had been just sitting at the bottom of the cliff watching him. Following after him every time he tried to climb sideways to get away. They were hoping that he would eventually just _drop_ out of exhaustion.

They were trying to wait him out.

He hadn't been able to outlast them either. He was _constantly_ having to maintain his grip on the wall, while his pursuers could sit down and rest. It was a battle of attrition and he was losing _badly_.

He hadn't made it easier on himself on that _last_ movement of his either. As he had been ascending, he had noticed that there were fewer and fewer handholds. They had become _so_ few at his current altitude that he had to perform a leap to reach the one he was currently _clinging_ to.

But then, the worst possible outcome happened.

There were no more handholds above him.

Just a sheer vertical wall that he would never be able to get past. It was so _unnatural_ looking. Just a _perfectly_ vertical and flat, _wall_. He couldn't go _back_ either because of the shape of the wall. He had just gone over an L-shaped ledge. One that he had been _underneath_. His feet weren't even on the wall anymore as a result. They were just _hanging_. He was supporting his entire body-weight on the tiny hold currently in his grip.

He couldn't backtrack, and he couldn't ascend. There were no holds on either his right, or his left.

He was stuck. And he had been for a few minutes now.

He _definitely_ wasn't going to be able to hold on for much longer.

Yet if he let go, he would die. Unless his hidden power came to the rescue. But he couldn't be sure that it would. After all, where had it been during his fight earlier? He had almost been killed on several occasions _then_.

He had lost feeling in his arms completely almost thirty seconds ago.

He had tried punching a hole in the wall so that he could use _that_ as a handhold, but he hadn't been strong enough. All he had received was a _bloody_ fist as a result.

He could feel his grip loosening.

He was almost out of time.

He frantically started searching for anything that he could use. _Anything_ at all that he had somehow missed during his previous frantic searches.

 _Still_ nothing. Just like the last time he had checked.

He was running on sheer adrenaline and willpower now. He had maybe thirty seconds left, and that was being optimistic, before he would-

 _SNAP_

His eyes widened, and he felt his stomach drop.

He was still clutching his handhold with all he had, but his handhold wasn't connected to the wall anymore.

It had just _snapped_ off.

He was in free-fall.

His hands darted out to grasp something in a last ditch effort, but they just slid off the wall. There was nothing to grab.

He was going to die.

He just continued to stare, in disbelief, at the place that the rock in his hand _had_ been attached to.

Everything seemed to slow down, and his mind started processing at speeds it never had before, but he was ultimately, too scared and desperate to notice.

Why had he decided to leave his clearing today? He still had almost a week's worth of food left. Food that was just stockpiled in bags, back at the clearing. Why had he gone out searching for more?

Why had he been so greedy and _careless_?

He had wanted a larger back-up in case of emergencies. He had experienced _debilitating_ hunger not too long ago. But rather than simply getting a _reasonable_ amount of food again, to just _survive_ , he had gone to the _opposite_ extreme. He had needed _more_. So that he would _never_ go hungry like that again.

From having too little, to wanting too much. How pathetic. He had completely disrespected his environment.

He really _was_ disappointed in himself.

One of the lessons his dad had always taught him about nature, was to only take what you needed and nothing more.

 _Moderation_.

He had forgotten that.

He should have just kept training. He had been making _so_ much progress recently.

If he had continued training for another week, and _then_ ventured out when he ran out of food, he would have been able to defeat those T-Rex with his new strength. He was _sure_. He had been improving _that_ fast.

Faster than ever.

But he had forgotten to take _one_ critical thing into account.

His overall strength, was _just_ as important a resource out here, as his food and water was. It was _just_ as critical for his survival.

He had gotten _too_ overconfident in his abilities. He had compared them to the tigers and bears in the area. _They_ had been _easy_ to beat, so he had thought that he could handle anything in the area.

He hadn't thought everything through.

If he hadn't left his clearing, would he even have met those T-Rex? Would he have survived until the end of the week?

How would the future have panned out?

He felt his eyes widen, as his mind conjured up an image. It was a _tunnel_ , and his dad was at the end of it. His dad was waiting for him. Waiting for him to get stronger, and to finally catch up to him after making it through the tunnel's _expanse_.

He wanted nothing more than to make it to the end with his own strength, and earn the right to fight alongside everyone there.

But the tunnel was _long_ , and _dangerous_.

Would he have made it to the end if he hadn't left?

Would he have made it until the saiyan's arrived? Would he have been able to meet his dad once again? To fight alongside him and everyone else?

He never should have left the clearing.

Regret.

 _'I think I finally understand what that feels like.'_

No, he should have done things differently even _sooner_ than that. _Sooner_ than his decision to leave the clearing.

When he had been taken by Piccolo _that_ day, why had he acted so childishly? Calling for help to anyone who would listen? Crying over the fact that he was scared?

Why had he been so _weak_?

He should have asked to be trained _immediately_. Or at least asked how Piccolo had created matter from seemingly nothing. He never would have run into his food problems if he had done at _least_ that.

Or his clothing problem for that matter.

He could have just materialized them both.

He wouldn't have had to waste valuable training time getting basic necessities.

He had made mistake after mistake, right until the end.

His immaturity cost him his life.

Not that he had ever really amounted to anything. Almost his entire life had been spent studying. He had read _countless_ books on a huge variety of subjects. He was almost _certain_ that he knew more than _either_ of his parents when it came to all things theoretical in nature.

What a _waste_.

He had never really _lived_.

 _Maybe_ , above all, _that_ was his biggest regret.

These _last_ few months, even with all the stress that came with the extreme survival training, and the countless mysteries that surrounded him, were some of the _best_ times of his life.

Gaining super strength, running at super speeds. He practically had super-powers.

He even got to try and apply some of his math and physics theories to what he was working on.

He should have asked his dad to train him as soon as he had been able to walk.

 _'I wonder if there are any theories in that book of mine that could have saved me.'_

It was his _favorite_ physics textbook. The one on classical mechanics.

The one he had gotten on his second birthday? Or was it his third? His early childhood was a bit blurry so he wasn't sure anymore which one it had been.

But he sure knew that book. He had almost _completely_ memorized its contents after reading it through completely, _four_ times.

It had sure made his mom happy.

Seeing him finally change his mindset towards studying. It had been _that_ book that had finally stopped him from constantly complaining about it to her.

He was actually going through his fifth read through before his life was completely flipped upside down. He had wanted to make sure that he hadn't missed anything.

And he was glad that he had. Some of the results in _that_ text had been _directly_ responsible for the development of his training methods.

The laws of motion gave rise to his sprinting technique, the basic ideas behind his pursuit of perfect movement, _and_ energy minimization.

And the mechanics of _springs_ gave rise to his air walking technique.

Springs.

The image in his mind shattered.

And was promptly _replaced_ with another.

He saw his favorite book. It opened and flipped towards the section on springs.

It was only _then_ that he finally realized just how incredible the feat his mind was unconsciously performing, really was.

He could _read_ the page.

In so much detail that he even noted the _page_ number.

His eyes widened and he mentally slapped himself.

Sitting there, on the page, was a simple fact that he hadn't even considered before now. If he had remembered it when he had been training, he would have been able to save himself from the situation he was in.

He wouldn't have fallen.

Maybe he really _could_ have made it to the end of that tunnel.

His air walking technique was only _half_ complete.

And the other half was just as useful as the first. Possibly _more_ so.

When you _push_ on a spring, _it_ pushes back. When applied to his air walking, the thin cushion of Ki, is the spring in question, and pushes him _away_ from the ground. It's why he never touches it.

But you can also _pull_ on a spring. In that case, _it_ pulls back as well.

It resists motion in _both_ directions. Not just the one.

If he had somehow figured out a way to take advantage of that, then he would have been able to pull himself _towards_ the ground, instead of pushing _away_ from it. He'd have been able to _stick_ to things. He wouldn't have had to constantly concern himself over the possibility of tripping or slipping over things ever again, either.

But most importantly…

He would have been able to _stick_ to walls too.

There _was_ an answer after all.

Was it too late to try it?

He didn't want to die, but was there enough time?

His mind had gone into overdrive to let him know that there _was_ in fact, an _answer_.

And he had no reason to ignore it. If he didn't at _least_ give it his all, he'd never be able to face his dad again.

But most of all, the one entity that gave him the answer in the first place, his own, incredible subconscious mind…

He would be turning his back on it.

It may not be an actual person, but it had _always_ felt like it _was_. Some of the ideas he had received from it were so out of left field that they surprised even _him_.

And _those_ ideas were the best ones.

He spun around to face the fast-approaching ground. Quickly judging the distance, he figured that he had _seconds_.

He _wasn't_ close enough to the wall.

Whatever he was going to try to do, would require him to be able to touch it.

So he fired a Ki blast in the opposite direction. It _was_ weak, but the momentum was enough to close the distance.

He _slammed_ into the wall.

He felt his back strike the rock and bounce off, before he started tumbling end over end down the wall of the mountain.

Briefly, during one of his flips, he caught a glimpse of the dinosaurs still waiting for him at the mountain's base. They were on their feet, jostling for position. Clearly, they knew what was going on. One of them was even beginning to open its mouth.

They were going to eat him right out of the air unless he did something, _now_.

How was he even going to do this though?

He had the idea but how did he apply it?

He felt his head abruptly change direction, and go completely numb.

Had he just hit the rock wall, _head_ first?

Ouch.

 _That_ had hurt. A lot.

Specks of light were _everywhere_. It was like night time, but in the day. So many stars were out…

What was he doing again?

He saw a flash of teeth.

Right…

Dinosaurs, springs, falling…

He had to attach himself to the side of the mountain with his Ki somehow. But how could Ki do that?

That was when he _saw_ it.

He saw it through the leftover haze that the impact of his head hitting the wall, left behind.

It was like time had stopped and the world faded away. For just a moment, he saw a _perfect_ image. A single, simple, mental diagram that explained _everything_.

He had been wrong _again_.

Minutes ago, he had learned that Ki didn't reinforce the durability of an object, it instead, protected it like a shield. _Surrounded_ it.

But he hadn't taken into account the fact that there was no such thing as a _truly_ solid object. Not on a _molecular_ scale anyway. There were _tiny_ spaces between molecules and atoms. _No_ two distinct things could ever _actually_ make contact with each other.

A solid object, like his stick from earlier, was actually just a collection of atoms held together by various forces. They were _closely_ packed, but _not_ in contact. The various forces of the universe kept each atomic nucleus separated by a short distance. And there _did_ exist a variety of things that could pass between those spaces. Electromagnetic radiation and various subatomic particles could manage it.

Ki, whatever it actually was made of, could do this too.

It _had_ to be able to, or else it would never be able to travel through the solid object that was his _body_ , the way that it did.

His previous situation where he had 'pumped' his Ki into that _stick_ , was analogous to a _sponge_ being placed underwater.

The _sponge_ was the _stick_ in his analogy, and the _water_ was his Ki. The water _surrounded_ and protected the sponge. But, due to the tiny _holes_ in the sponge, the water was able to get inside, and saturate it.

When he had blocked the tail whip that would have killed him, all that the impact had done was _disrupt_ his focus on his Ki. As a result, it dissipated, leaving the stick _intact_.

It was like suddenly _converting_ all of the water around the sponge into vapor and letting it disperse.

The sponge would remain intact, and the water would be gone.

It was _exactly_ what had occurred with his stick.

Ki _density_ was the answer.

When his Ki was incredibly _thin_ , it could pass through solid objects by slipping through the gaps in its atomic structure. But when it got denser, _thicker_ , it began to take on some of the properties of solid matter. This was why his air walking technique worked. It involved creating a ball of Ki _thick_ enough to provide a force against the ground, but _thin_ enough to prevent the ground from being burned.

If he thinned out his Ki even _more_ than that though, it would be _too_ thin to provide _any_ force against the ground at all, and he wouldn't levitate.

This was because all of the Ki 'particles' were passing _through_ the gaps between the atoms in the ground.

And the _critical_ concept that he had just visualized in his mind, was that even when his Ki was thin enough to pass _through_ the ground, he would _still_ have mental control over it.

The solution was so simple.

Use a _thinner_ version of his air walking technique to create a ball of Ki _inside_ the rock wall of the mountain, then abruptly, with as much force as possible, _condense_ it.

Those gaps in the molecular structure of the wall will suddenly be filled with his Ki. And these Ki particles will exude intermolecular forces against the molecules of the wall.

His Ki would literally become _part_ of the wall. At least, until he thinned it out again, or let it disperse.

All that remained would be for him to ensure that his _feet_ were locked in place inside the _same_ ball of Ki that was implanted into the wall, and then mentally contract the ball _hard_ enough to overcome the force of gravity, and halt his momentum.

He opened his eyes once again.

He had solved the problem at what felt like the speed of a camera flash.

He was mid-roll when he came back to reality.

His back _bounced_ off the wall once again. The ground was _so_ close. He had to succeed on his first attempt or he was going to die.

After completing one _final_ rotation, he lashed out with his feet. The _instant_ he felt them make contact with the wall, he activated his air walking technique.

He activated it _perfectly_ on instinct, which almost got him killed. It was _too_ dense. Immediately dialing back on his Ki, he started pumping it into the wall.

He needed as _much_ as possible for his idea to work.

It was time for the moment of truth.

This technique was the exact _opposite_ of what he was used to. His air walking technique involved mentally _expanding_ the ball of Ki he was standing on to overcome his own weight. Here, he had to mentally _contract_ the ball of Ki _hard_ enough to stop his momentum.

He had _no_ idea what was going to happen.

He threw out his arms for stabilization, and he tensed his body, before clamping _down_ on his manifested Ki as hard and as fast as possible.

* * *

He was lying on his stomach, gasping for breath when he noticed that he had come to a full stop.

The impact had knocked _all_ of the wind out of him.

Opening his eyes, he looked _up_ , and saw the group of dinosaurs from before. They were about twenty meters away, and looking right back at him hungrily.

The ground was _also_ above him.

When he looked _down_ he figured out why.

The sky was _below_ him, and he was lying down _on_ the wall of the mountain.

He felt tears stinging the backs of his eyes, and he smiled.

He was still clamping down as _hard_ as he could mentally, on the Ki around his feet, and in the wall. His idea had _worked_. His feet had stopped _immediately_. But his upper body had kept going, and as a result he winded himself by _slamming_ into the wall on his stomach.

But he _had_ stopped.

He could feel tears start to leak out of his eyes. Not out of pain, even though there was quite a bit of that, or out of sadness, but out of a sheer sense of accomplishment.

It was the feeling that he would get every time he blew away even his own expectations. After knowing that he had succeeded _utterly_. Things had gone _so_ right that he couldn't have _possibly_ done better.

It was a feeling of pride. He had absolutely _no_ idea how he had managed to remain calm enough during _that_ ordeal, to think his way out the way that he had.

But he _had_ done it.

One of the dinosaurs let out a roar of frustration, after noticing that it hadn't gotten its meal.

Gohan placed his hands on the wall, and shakily got to his feet, while _carefully_ maintaining his newly invented technique.

He was now standing _on_ the wall, _perfectly_ parallel to the ground.

So many things had led up to this moment. During those first few moments of his fall, when he thought he was going to die, he had found himself regretting so many things. He hadn't seen just how _perfectly_ all of those events had fallen in to place to lead him here.

If he hadn't taught himself silent movement, if he hadn't invented air walking, if he hadn't taught himself how to control his Ki, if literally _anything_ had gone differently, he wouldn't be where he was now.

If he _had_ asked Piccolo to train him on that day, he'd have never learned to depend on himself. He'd have never had the chance to come up with new techniques and training methods, as he would have been following _Piccolo's_ instead.

He wouldn't have had the chance to experiment, and apply what he knew from his books, to his training.

He wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn the value in making a mistake on his own and learning from it.

And most of all, if he hadn't been lucky enough to be born with a brain that could just go into overdrive like it just had…

He now knew beyond any doubt that he _was_ satisfied with who he was. He no longer wished that he was exactly like his dad, or his mom, or anyone else for that matter.

He knew beyond any doubt that if he were allowed to switch minds with _any_ other person, living _or_ dead, he would decline in _all_ cases. After what his brain had just pulled, he would _never_ underestimate himself again.

Carefully, he bent down and grabbed onto the closest handhold, and released the mental clamp on his Ki.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he noticed that he was _very_ low on energy. _Pain_ was starting to show itself _all_ over. He had taken an absolute _beating_ from smashing into the wall so many times, and he was _bleeding_. He didn't even know where it was coming from anymore. It was just _all_ over his new, home-made, deerskin shirt.

He had hit his _head_ a few times too, judging from the _splitting_ headache that was reverberating throughout his skull.

He glanced up at the next handhold.

He had to get to the top so he could finally rest.

The dinosaurs weren't going anywhere, and he still had to escape.

And when he reached _that_ spot on the mountain once again, the one that had caused him to fall, he now had the perfect technique to use.

 _Reverse_ air walking.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	12. Chapter 12: Break

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N:**

 **Alright, this will probably be a long explanation, so feel free to skip it if you just want to read the chapter. The actual word count on this chapter is about 3100, so don't be deceived by the long explanation below.**

 **For starters, surgery went well, and I wrote about three quarters of this chapter in a single sitting during that very same week, some two months ago.**

 **Then, I stopped. And** ** _this_** **, will hopefully clarify to anyone who is curious as to why.**

 **What I'm about to say may very well cause some of you to leave this story, and that's totally fine if you do that, I'll understand. But this is the way that it is.**

 **I started writing this story because I had an idea that I wanted to explore, and because I knew that I was an '** ** _at least decent'_** **writer that wanted to improve. Having a lot of followers wasn't and** ** _still_** **isn't the goal.**

 **Having a lot of reviews wasn't the goal either. Though I** ** _will_** **say that** ** _all_** **reviews, good or bad, I take seriously, and I do value the support from every single one of you. Even the ones that never follow, favourite,** ** _or_** **review.**

 **It was meant to be a learning experience. Whatever happened, happened. If it became popular, great. If not, oh well.**

 **But as I continued to write, I think I lost sight of that.**

 **I started this story as a hobby. Something to come back to every now and then to continue working on. But slowly, over time, something happened that forced me to stop for a while.**

 **It became a chore. I felt as if I** ** _had_** **to keep coming back** ** _regardless_** **as to whether or not I felt like it at the time. That I needed to get** ** _more_** **chapters out,** ** _faster_** **.**

 **And _that_ killed _all_ the motivation I had left.**

 **To be honest, I almost didn't even come back at all.**

 **I needed a break.**

 **And as a result of all of this, and the part that** ** _may_** **cause some of you to leave, is that there** ** _will not_** **be regular updates. I've said that before, but I** ** _really_** **mean it this time. Some months I could write multiple chapters, and others, none at all. I don't know when I'll update next.**

 **I'm going to** ** _continue_** **writing at my** ** _own_** **pace, rather than promise anyone when the next chapter is going to be out.**

 **If I ever say something along the lines of "yeah, the next chapter should be out in a few days"** ** _please_** **take that with a grain of salt. I did** ** _exactly_** **that to** ** _two_** **people this last chapter, and if either of you are reading this, I apologize for keeping you waiting for so long.**

 **Unless I say,** ** _specifically_** **"** **I _promise_** **the chapter will be out at {some time}," I really don't know when the next chapter will be out, and I really only said whatever I did, based on my mood at the time.**

 **But, in any case, I'm back now. If you want to call it that. And the reason why it's taken me so long to explain all of this is due to the fact that whenever I read stories on this site, I get pretty annoyed whenever an author comes out with an "update chapter" that isn't actually a chapter at all, and just an explanation. So, I waited until this chapter was finished before explaining everything.**

 **But that isn't all I wanted to say. I don't want these super long author notes to become habit, so rather than put all of this off for future chapters, I'll get everything out all at once.**

 **After I came back to this story, I re-read some of my earlier chapters. And to be honest, I was kind of disappointed with them. When I was writing those chapters, at the time, I remember being totally satisfied with them. But now that I no longer remember what I was thinking, precisely, at the time, I found them kind of hard to follow.**

 **I can only imagine what it was like for you guys.**

 **So, as a result, I want to update them.** ** _Nothing_** **significant will change, this isn't a re-write. And if you have made it this far, there won't be** ** _any_** **reason for you to re-read the updated versions.**

 **It's mainly for any new readers.**

 **(Ideally, I will post a new chapter at the same time that I update an old one, so the story isn't going to just abruptly halt while I work on older chapters…)**

 **And finally…**

 **I have been writing this story solely on my own. I have no editor, no beta, and I have shown none of my friends or family, this story. I haven't so much as told anyone at all about it. And to be honest, I think it shows.**

 **I think I want to try working with someone.**

 **If** ** _anyone_** **(ideally with better grammar skills than me) is willing to assist me in improving my older chapters, helping out with my new ones, and most importantly, who isn't put off by my 'no regular updates policy,' feel free to let me know.**

 **I'd love to try working with you.**

 **-LeviTamm**

* * *

He was _doing_ it.

He was _so_ close to the top.

Despite there being _no_ usable handholds on the wall anymore, he had _still_ managed to find a way to continue his ascent.

By _crawling_. Well… _sort_ of.

He had _finally_ succeeded in climbing over that _ridiculously_ difficult overhang that had caused him to fall, and almost _die_ previously, through the use of his brand-new, _sort_ -of-technique.

 _Now_ , he was dealing with the sheer, vertical cliff face that had loomed _above_ it. The place that he hadn't been able to reach on his previous attempt.

It was the _final_ stretch of his climb. The section that he hadn't been able to even get to, due to the fact that he had limited himself to the idea that he had to climb, _solely_ through the use of his arm and leg muscles.

Which was _impossible_ as far as he could tell, since everything was totally _flat_ now. There wasn't anything to grab onto anymore, and there hadn't been for a while.

The distribution of handholds decreased from a few here and there, to _zero_ , beyond the overhang. It had already been low _before_ , but now… it was honestly getting ridiculous.

It was like trying to scale a sheet of glass.

If he hadn't come up with his new Ki solidification technique, that he had yet to name properly, _exactly_ when he did, there was _no_ way he would have made it this far.

He was _really_ beginning to regret his decision on coming to _this_ particular mountain to make his escape.

 _Thankfully_ however, there were only a few more meters of rock left, before he reached the top of the mountain.

His _new_ idea was definitely one of his better ones. He could already tell. But he would have rather come up with it under different circumstances.

Extending his legs, he scooted himself _upwards_ , another few feet.

Glancing down once again, he confirmed that the dinosaurs were _still_ there, _way_ down at the base of the mountain.

They were still waiting, _hoping_ , for him to fall again.

It was a level of determination that was unsettling.

Why wouldn't they just _leave_ already? It should be obvious to them by now that he wasn't going to be their dinner.

He dropped his control over his Ki on his left leg.

He allowed it to dangle free from the wall for a moment, before he once again repeated the maneuver that he had been using to slowly ascend the wall.

Dragging it back, towards his chest and bending his knee, he planted it in a new, _higher_ location, and _stuck_ it to the wall once again.

Repeating the process with his _right_ leg, he found himself _crab_ -walking, _backwards_ , _up_ the wall.

His hands, feet, and legs were all firmly stuck to the wall to hold up his weight. When he wanted to ascend, he would unstick the limb he wanted to move, move it to its new location, and then stick it back to the wall again.

When he _wasn't_ moving, he was seated on the wall facing the _ground_ , where his goal, the _summit_ , was _behind_ him.

It was a strange orientation to get used to, but it had been the easiest way he had managed to find that had allowed him to climb this type of wall. He would probably find a better way to climb vertical surfaces in the future, but he was still having a pretty difficult time just keeping himself _on_ the wall.

He was using his Ki in a different manner than he was used to, so he had to concentrate a good amount. Anything that made things a little easier was welcome at this point. And backwards crab walking, happened to do just that.

It was a good thing he had emphasized Ki _control_ over raw strength during his training.

 _That_ decision had saved his life, without a doubt.

Stopping his ascent momentarily, he took in the sights while letting his muscles recover.

His current position, offered a pretty nice view of the area, T-Rex aside. Comparable even, to that of Mount Paozu, his home.

The _mountain_ he was currently climbing, hardly qualified, in _his_ opinion, as an _actual_ mountain. It was only a few hundred meters tall if that, and there were a multitude of others just like it in the area. Evenly spaced apart from each other, and separated by plains.

The mountains were shaped more like giant _pillars._ Massively thick cylinders of rock with flat tops.

There was nothing notable about them really, at least at first glance. The only reason he had decided to climb one was for a safe spot to rest, and the flat tops of the pillars had looked enticing.

He was tired, sore, bleeding, his head hurt, and he was being chased by dinosaurs.

Some rest was really starting to sound like a good idea.

He also needed to re-think his training, yet again.

Even though his previous Ki manipulation and air-walking training had proven to be invaluable, and had saved his life just minutes ago, he had realized that there was a problem with the way he was doing it.

He was getting _too_ good at using his feet as outputs for his energy.

He was _unbalanced_. He could pump out energy with almost instinctual ease, out of his feet, but he had a hard time doing even _basic_ Ki manipulation with his hands.

This mismatch was being highlighted in his current situation. He could stick his legs to the wall with ease, but his hands felt… _unstable_ almost. Like they might slip off the wall at any moment.

It was the main reason why he was _crab_ walking instead of climbing up the wall like an insect would. Or a gecko, even. Sitting down on the wall _maximized_ the surface area of contact between his legs and the wall, and allowed him to relieve a lot of the weight from his hands.

He had to work on that imbalance in the future.

That, _and_ his previous model of explaining how Ki worked, was _wrong_. He needed some time to think over any possible implications.

He had so much to do.

But first…

He took another step, then scooted backwards. He took another, then another…

Then he reached the _top_.

Turning around while _still_ sticking to the wall, he grabbed the top ledge of the mountain, and _pulled_ himself up.

Levering himself over the side, he flopped onto his back, struggling to catch his breath.

It had been a while since he had been _this_ tired. Not since he had first started practicing his air walking, at least.

And this was definitely the _first_ time that he had ever been in this much _pain_.

It was a totally new experience.

His previously _brown_ , deerskin clothes were now stained _red_ , and he was _soaked_ in both blood and sweat.

At least, it certainly _felt_ like he was soaked.

Clearing his mind, he took a few moments to just listen to his breathing as it slowly quieted down.

He _really_ just wanted to go to sleep. It didn't matter that the sun was still high up in the sky. He wanted to go to sleep.

So he closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the fact that some light still managed to get through his eyelids.

That was when he _heard_ it.

A weird, high-pitched… _chirping_?

It was _close_ too.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes again and took a glance to his side, the direction where the noise was coming from.

A giant pile of… _tree_ branches?

It had taken a moment to figure out what he had been looking at, but there was definitely a pile of branches up here.

And that wasn't all, either.

Was the sound coming from _inside_ the pile somehow? That didn't make any sense.

Also, there was a black blob on the ground. A shadow?

But there was nothing up here.

That was when he looked _up_.

Straight into a pair of _giant_ , yellow eyes.

Oh.

It had clicked right then.

How had he managed to miss _that_?

He had crawled into a _nest_.

One built by a _very_ large bird that he couldn't identify the species of.

There was an ear splitting shriek, loud enough to cause a gust of wind that blew his hair backwards, and forced him to close his eyes.

Opening his eyes, he watched with an almost… _detached_ curiosity as the giant bird's wing flashed towards him.

His muscles were sore. He had already started relaxing too… after a hard workout. His muscles had already started loosening up.

He really wanted to make an effort to move them, but he was just too tired, and he had been caught _totally_ off-guard

He knew that the moment he tried to move his muscles, they would hurt again. It was just what happened when he tried to stretch out cooling off, sore muscles.

He was in a battle of will power. His brain told him to move, but his body didn't want to respond.

His body won, opting to take another brief moment of relaxation before impact.

His brain had given up after realizing that even if he _had_ tried to move, there was _no_ way he would have been fast enough to get out of the way.

He called on as much of his power as possible for protection, and flooded his whole body with it.

It was all he could do.

He felt the abrupt shift in air pressure on his face as the strike inched closer to his face.

 _This_ was going to hurt.

A moment later, he lost all feeling in his entire body, and felt himself leave the ground entirely.

His eyes were forced shut once again.

Contrary to what he had originally thought, the strike hadn't hurt that much initially. He had lost control of his Ki, and accelerated from rest, to _super-speed_ in an instant.

He had felt the _acceleration_ certainly, but not the pain.

It was like being hit by a _bus_.

He could feel all of the organs and muscles in his body _shift_ at the sudden change in speed. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. At least, not yet.

The bird, whatever it was, was a non-sentient type, and couldn't speak, _or_ understand speech. Meaning, it acted on instinct instead of reason.

Just his luck.

Even though most currently known species had individuals in it that could rival the intelligence of humans, for some reason that science hadn't been able to explain yet, other individuals had no such intelligence, despite being genetically similar.

If he had run into a bird of that species that was smart enough to converse with, he could have reasoned with it instead of just being batted away in an instant, with no warning.

He would have _left_ the mountaintop too, if he had been asked.

But he clearly had no luck at all today.

It must have thought that he had been trying to harm its _obviously_ new-born chicks, and lashed out defensively.

The new-borns had been the source of the original chirping sound.

Opening his eyes, he quickly noticed that he had been blown clean off, and away from the mountain.

He was in free-fall… again.

Quickly, he started shifting his arms and legs to try and orient himself. He definitely wanted to land feet first.

Concentrating on his feet he started drawing on his Ki. He was going to need a _lot_ of it to survive a landing from that height.

He was pretty sure he had enough to _survive_ at least. It was his _physical_ muscles that were severely weakened, _not_ his energy reserves.

He started flooding his feet with his power, then glanced down…

 _Snap!_

He _felt_ it, more than he heard it. Something _breaking_ in his right leg after abruptly hitting something, _hard_.

Had he _misjudged_ the ground's position? It had been _way_ closer than he had thought.

Why?

Or rather, how?

He caught a flash of green from the ground. An _unusual_ color of green. It wasn't grass.

What did he hit?

Instinctively, his arms flew up, in an attempt to protect his face.

He _definitely_ would have face planted if he hadn't.

His body continued forward, after his feet made contact.

He _felt_ his arms slam into what he now knew, _wasn't_ the ground. It couldn't have been. And it took everything he had to protect his head from hitting it.

Immediately, he began rolling uncontrollably down a slope, before …falling once again?

A moment later he slammed into something else. It was a _lot_ harder than the previous impact, and it knocked all the air out of him.

He had landed on his back, spread-eagled, facing the sky.

He could hear the sounds of various pebbles and pieces of rubble hitting the ground around him as everything seemed to come to a halt.

Then the sounds of nature filled the area once again.

…

Was he still alive?

He started gasping for air.

 _In_ , and out.

He was still breathing.

And there was no pain. At _all_.

 _That_ was an even _worse_ impact than he had had when he fell off the mountain the first time, _plus_ he was already in a _lot_ of pain _before_ he had been hit by that bird. Something was wrong. Had the adrenaline not worn off yet?

Where was the pain?

He shifted a little.

…

Ah, _there_ it was.

It had started out as a weak ache in the background, before suddenly _ramping_ up in intensity.

It was _bad_.

So bad that he could feel tears.

It felt like he had just been thrown through a meat grinder, then beaten up with a hammer.

The only reason he wasn't screaming outright, was because it would hurt too much to do so.

All of the muscles in his body felt like they had an electric current running through them. They were contracted, and it was difficult to move.

Heat.

That was probably the worst of all.

It _felt_ like he was on _fire_.

Was _this_ what his dad had felt like back _then_?

His mind conjured up the image of his uncle standing over his dad, laughing maniacally.

A part of his mind had always been morbidly curious as to what something like what his dad had gone through, felt like, even though he certainly wouldn't want to test it out himself. He knew that it had to have been bad for his _dad_ of all people to be essentially powerless because of the pain, but now he _knew_.

And to be honest, when compared to the pain he was feeling now, his dad had probably had it worse.

He couldn't even _begin_ to imagine trying to stand up right now.

It hurt to breathe.

At the moment, he almost wished that that impact _had_ killed him. Just to spare him from… _this_.

This pain was _beyond_ brutal.

He had no words…

It was beyond his understanding.

He was almost _positive_ that he was going to die in a few moments. With _this_ much pain, there's _no_ way that he wouldn't.

The image of his uncle appeared in his mind once again.

It was a welcome distraction… but it caused him to pause.

Huh.

He had killed him.

 _He_ himself had actually killed someone.

That hadn't really crossed his mind until now.

The memories of those moments were pretty fragmented so he couldn't remember himself actually _doing_ it… but, he _had_.

That made him a murderer technically…. right?

Why hadn't that crossed his mind until now?

Was it because he was dying?

Now that he thought about it… that had really been the only thing he had done with his life until now.

The only significant thing he had done in his life, had been killing his uncle.

Why hadn't he noticed that until now?

When he thought about it, it _was_ logically the best decision at the time. Even if he hadn't been thinking very _logically_ at the time…

People like _that_ , like the saiyans… they had to be _removed_ , right? It was the only way to make sure they wouldn't threaten anyone again.

At least, it made sense to _him_.

But, his _dad_ had always told him otherwise. That it was wrong to kill. That he would regret it, and remember it, for the rest of his life, if he did.

It was supposed to be _hard_.

It was supposed to weigh on his conscience.

So why didn't it?

Was it because he didn't remember it clearly?

No… well _maybe_.

But _maybe_ the reason why he hadn't thought about it until now…

It was because, for some reason… he didn't _care_.

He wasn't sorry about it, and he would do it again in the same situation.

He had expected it to _hurt_ more though. Like what his dad had said.

 _'I guess I finally have an answer for whether or not I would have had it in me to kill the other saiyans when they got here.'_

He would have.

Absolutely.

Was there something wrong with him for thinking like that?

He started feeling the ground around him shake.

It _quickly_ got more intense.

Tilting his head ninety degrees, he managed to take a glance behind him, in the direction of the sound.

 _Eight_ charging dinosaurs greeted his gaze.

With oddly, _green_ colored skin, _different_ from the shade of grass…

He had hit a _dinosaur_ on his way down.

 _That_ was what caused him to screw up his landing.

He had forgotten about them.

The one in the lead had its mouth open, and was already scooping up the ground mere feet behind him.

The shadow left behind by its open jaws was already engulfing him, offering him a clear view of the razor-sharp teeth that were moments away from tearing him apart, and the black abyss just beyond them.

It left him a final moment of contemplation.

He really wished that the fall _had_ killed him.

At least _that_ would have been quick.

The pain left behind from surviving the impact had been _bad_. Worse than anything he had ever felt before, in fact.

But being torn apart?

That could only be described as the _pinnacle_ of brutality.

He couldn't think of a worse way to die, than _that_.

And _that_ thought terrified him.

As the jaws enclosed around him, he realized that being helpless really _wasn't_ his worst fear, as he had thought previously.

He knew that he was afraid of causing the deaths of _others_ more than dying _himself_ , but when it came down to it, there was something that he feared even more.

As things currently stood, he was more afraid of _pain_.

He was _still_ a coward.

He hadn't _changed_.

He had always wanted everyone else to save him in the past, because he didn't want to fight himself.

His dad… Piccolo…

He _was_ scared.

He wanted the saiyans dead so that he would never have to face them again… because he was scared.

He wanted to die _quickly_ so that he wouldn't feel the pain of a death that was drawn out.

Because he was scared.

 _Now_ he understood.

At the core of his character, there was nothing but fear. Fear of failing others, fear of pain, fear of death, even fear of fear itself.

Despite all of his attempts to assure himself that it _wasn't_ true, in the past, he was only deceiving himself.

He wasn't his father. He wasn't brave, or strong.

He was Gohan the _coward_.

And he absolutely _hated_ that.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**


	13. Chapter 13: Divide and Split

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N:**

 **Well then.**

 **This one took a while.**

 ** _Way_** **longer than I expected it to, but a lot happened, to be fair.**

 **This is going to be a** ** _long_** **A/N…**

 **Feel free to skip it if you just want to get into the story.**

 **First, everything that I said in the previous A/N about how writing this is a hobby, and how I don't have a serious update schedule still applies. So feel free to re-read that, as I don't want to repeat myself and make** ** _this_** **A/N longer than it has to be.**

 **That said, here are a few explanations that may or may not interest you. I feel that they are at least owed:**

 **I don't come home every day and write. In fact, sometimes I can go over a week without even looking back on this story, or at what I have for the next chapter. Honestly, I'm a pretty lazy writer. I'm sorry if that bothers any of you, but it's just how I am.**

 **Writing this simply doesn't take priority over work, school, and other commitments.**

 **That said, six or seven months is a** ** _bit_** **extreme for an 8k word chapter.**

 **But laziness wasn't the sole reason. In fact, that laziness derived from the sheer number of problems I ran into when trying to write this chapter.**

 **I'd come back to the story, ready to write, I'd read what I had, see the huge issues on the horizon, and then decide that I had other things to do. It was** ** _very_** **discouraging.**

 **I learned a lot of things about myself throughout this whole ordeal, though.**

 **For starters, I don't know if it's just the way I write and edit chapters, or if I'm just weird, but a chapter that is twice as long to read, takes** ** _four_** **times as long to write.**

 **For example, let's say I write a chapter that's 2k words. However long that took, you might expect that writing a 4k word chapter would take** ** _twice_** **as long. But it doesn't. It takes** ** _four_** **times as long.**

 **Writing a 6k chapter takes** ** _nine_** **times as long, and an 8k would take** ** _16_** **. It is** ** _parabolic_** **in nature for some reason. At least for me.**

 **So, for that reason, I'm probably going to be writing shorter chapters in the future.**

 **The other thing that I learned about myself is that I absolutely** ** _hate_** **plot holes.**

 **It may not be obvious from these chapters, but I already have all of the major events in this story planned out, from all the weird occurrences Gohan is experiencing, right through the saiyan's arrival, Frieza, and even Cell.**

 **There are a few gaps between these events that allow for some leeway and new ideas, and I am planning some** ** _major_** **deviations from canon, but the core events are in place.**

 **That said, during the planning stage of this chapter, I was re-reading some of my older ones, and at some of the questions Gohan was asking himself about the nature of Ki, and quickly found out that due to the way I've made him act, he isn't going to stop asking these difficult questions. Eventually, he's going to reach a point where he's asking questions about his power that aren't answered by anyone. He's going to start running experiments that will have to have answers, but that nobody has actually done in the series.**

 **Does instant transmission kill the user when they are dematerialized, and plant a perfect clone of themselves at the destination, or does it somehow fold space like a wormhole?**

 **In either case, how does Ki manage it? What physical process occurs, that allows Ki to do this?**

 **How do DinoCaps work? Do they somehow compress matter, or are they 3-D atomic printers?**

 **How do the various regeneration abilities work?**

 **What is the difference between Ki and magic? How do they both even exist? How are they different?**

 **Why is there even a difference?**

 **These are just a few examples of questions that I came across, and had to make up answers for. You will see a few more in this chapter.**

 **Questions like these are questions** ** _this_** **version of Gohan will run into very quickly, due to the rate at which he is progressing, and the way I've written his character.**

 **Some of these questions may seem useless to some, but these subtle differences in answers can be** ** _huge_** **when in combat. Especially when you consider how different the plot-line is going to be in this story due to the general OOC-** ** _ness_** **.**

 **Fights aren't going to go the same way. Fights that were long and drawn out in the series may end** ** _very_** **quickly here. And fights that end in the series very quickly, may drag on for a lot longer.**

 **I had to do a** ** _lot_** **of research. I spent a huge amount of time basically creating a generalized theory of Ki, how it operates, and its relation to magic, just to keep the story going. It took a** ** _lot_** **of time, but it removed a surprising number of potential plot holes. It even gave a few** ** _possible_** **explanations for weird events in the series.**

 **This 'theory,' if you want to call it that, seems to be at the very least** ** _internally_** **consistent, but I am certainly not arrogant enough to say, "This is for sure the answer, and I solved it all."**

 **It just** ** _works_** **, seems to make sense, and it's what I'm going to run with here. These questions just** ** _needed_** **answers for this story to go smoothly, and it took a** ** _long_** **time to hash out in a way to prevent any contradictions. It also needed to allow all of the characters in the series to utilize their various weird abilities. Like Captain Ginyu's body switch, and Guldo's time freeze.**

 **Then I had to make sure that Gohan doesn't just suddenly figure out all these answers in one day, in an absurd stroke of unrealistic brilliance, and become super powerful as a result.**

 **Everything he learns,** ** _has_** **to have justification, and he** ** _will_** **make mistakes. Some explanations that he discovers will be** ** _wrong_** **.**

 **At least, wrong according to the theory I'm using here.**

 **And** ** _finally_** **, I had to re-write this chapter six times. I was originally planning a time skip, but I realized, that although there are a lot of tedious explanations to go through in this chapter, it is all necessary to get Gohan into the state of mind I want him to be in when the saiyans finally arrive.**

 **All of the re-writes and changing plans did turn this chapter into a bit of a train wreck, but hopefully you guys can still make sense of it.**

 **If ever, you see something that doesn't make sense in this story, or something that isn't explained clearly, feel free to let me know, and I will try to edit the chapter to clear it up.**

 **Sorry to the few reviewers and private messagers that I didn't respond to. Sometimes, I would log on, read a pm, decide to think about it for a while before answering, and then forget about it. It's a bad habit of mine that I'm trying to break.**

 **Ch1 was also edited. Nothing major changed so it isn't necessary to re-read if you don't want to.**

 **-LeviTamm**

* * *

Laying spread-eagled in a crater, broken and bleeding, there was really nothing more he could do.

There were no last second miracle solutions to get away, and _nobody_ was going to step in and save him. He was completely, _utterly_ helpless.

Again.

It was as simple as that.

He could do _nothing_ except pay witness to his own death.

It would be painful, he knew. _Excruciating_ even. Orders of magnitude greater than the pain he was already going through from the fall just moments ago, but after a time, it _would_ end.

It would _all_ be over.

He just needed to hold out through the pain, until then.

 _'It should only take a few more seconds.'_

…

Seconds that were going to drag out _agonizingly slowly_ if the _insane_ maneuvers his brain was pulling off in the background were anything to go by. His perception of time was nearly stationary now, so it would be a _long_ few seconds.

 _Every_ time he thought he had gotten used to what his brain could do, it _always_ came back and did something like _this_ , blowing his previous expectations out of the water. It was like it had _no_ limit to how _fast_ it could process information.

It was something that he had never found a reason to complain about before now. He was usually _grateful_ for it in fact, and even took advantage of it as often as possible, but there was a time and a place for it.

And it _wasn't_ here.

He couldn't _do_ anything injured as he was, so any plan he could come up with would be _pointless_. His brain was just wasting energy and dragging out what was supposed to be a few moments of pain followed by a quick death, into an _eternity_. He _really_ didn't want to have to see the next few seconds play out moment by moment, frame by frame, all because his mind couldn't just _stop_ for once. It was already going to be brutal enough as it was.

He just wanted this to be over as soon as possible.

Maybe it was the head injury talking, but sometimes, it felt like his mind was a completely separate entity. Even _long_ after he had given up on the situation, his mind just kept on whirling. Conjuring up a multitude of hypothetical solutions, only to discard each one as impossible an instant later.

It was basically fact checking him. Going over the _whole_ situation he was in again, in _unnecessary_ levels of detail, just to make _sure_ that it was impossible to solve after all.

Honestly, what could it possibly come up with that he hadn't seen yet, that could miraculously get him out of this mess? He couldn't even _move_ , and it hurt to breathe.

It was irritating.

He was tired, in pain, and now that he was _really_ paying attention to his feelings, absolutely _livid_ with the whole situation in general. All of the 'could have beens', how he could have _easily_ avoided this entire situation, the way he handled everything, his mind forcing him to watch his death play out in super slow motion with extreme detail, how emotionally unstable and cowardly he was as a person, and especially how _stupid_ this _thing_ was.

This T-Rex…

He knew it was an irrational hatred, but…

He had only been a few steps away from a new level in his training, he had _felt_ it. He wasn't anywhere _near_ his father's level yet, not by a long shot, but for the first time _ever_ , he had _seen_ some of the potential that he contained.

He might have actually been able to help when the saiyan's arrived. He may have even been a key factor. Not necessarily due to having enormous power by then, that would be greatly overestimating his capabilities, but due to the fact that the combined might of his dad, his dad's friends, and Piccolo, may in fact _equal_ the might of the saiyans.

Adding _himself_ to the equation, having even just a _little_ bit of power by then, when they arrived, could tip the balance in their favour. Just _being_ there at all, could win them the fight, and save the Earth.

But now _this_ thing, in its infinite wisdom, decided that this particular meal was more important than _any_ of that.

It didn't know about the saiyans. It couldn't. It didn't know about _anything_. Its _whole_ world probably consisted of this patch of land and the forest surrounding it.

This _thing_ didn't just _not_ recognize, or care, about the potential consequences of its own actions, but it _also_ didn't understand or comprehend just how stupid it really was.

It was just a mindless dinosaur acting on instinct that just _happened_ to stumble into a situation where it had the potential to inadvertently engineer the total wipe out of all life on earth.

In fact, it probably thought that eating him here was a _good_ thing. Satisfy its hunger for a few hours, then meander on off to its next meal. The fact it had just lowered the odds of the planet existing in the same condition as it does now, in a years' time would go _way_ over its head.

And the saiyans would never know. If they defeated his dad in a year, they'd never know that perhaps the only reason why, was because this particular dinosaur had gotten a little hungry one day, and happened upon a situation, totally by chance, that basically _paved_ the way for their victory long before they even got there.

They'd never know just how ludicrously unlucky the people of Earth had been.

He _hated_ this thing. It was so stupid that it lacked the comprehension of its own stupidity.

And it was going to kill him.

For some reason, the fact that it was a mindless dinosaur that would end him, got to him almost as much as the fact that he was going to die at all.

The fact that it wasn't a saiyan or any other form of intelligent life that killed him, but a stupid dinosaur...

Slowly, his _death_ , the _thing's_ wide open jaws continued to inch forward. They were buried in the ground at this point, scooping up so much dirt and rock that he was admittedly curious as to what happened to it all after it was swallowed. Something like that just _had_ to wreak absolute _havoc_ on its digestive system, _right_?

Was there some reason for it?

Or was it back to the stupidity of the thing again?

Slow motion didn't even begin to describe what he was seeing. His mind had gone completely off the rails, grinding faster than it ever had before.

Everything else aside, it was honestly incredible, even by his standards.

An _instant_ later, relative to him, he was able to pinpoint the _exact_ moment that his mind _finally_ gave up.

It _finally_ stopped frantically scanning through the environment around him to throw together a last second plan to survive, and started going through his memories.

His life began unfolding before him once again. An occurrence that he was really starting to get used to, considering all of the times it had flashed before him recently. It had happened multiple times just _today_ in fact…

He saw his home and his family. He saw how happy they all were back then. Back when his life was simple. Back when he wasn't _constantly_ surrounded by things that wanted to kill him, or when he wasn't being constantly _plagued_ by unsolvable mysteries…

He saw his room and… how had he not seen it earlier, the literal _mountain_ of books that he had stashed throughout the house…

He smiled.

They were both the cause of, and the solution to, _all_ of the problems he had in his life back then…

He saw his dad- _daddy?_

 _..._ Then promptly began to wonder _when_ exactly that term had become so awkward to say, or even think. _Daddy_ just seemed so… so _weird_ now…

Which was _itself_ weird. _That_ was what he had called his dad every day his whole life…

When had that changed?

Then he saw the day his life flipped upside down. When he was kidnapped by Radditz… then kidnapped _again_ , but by Piccolo…

 _Twice_ in one day. Within hours of each other. There had to be some sort of _record_ for that…

He remembered being woken up, quite _rudely_ now that he thought back on it objectively, by being tossed into a pond…

Then there was his conversation with Piccolo…

His dad… the Dragonballs… the Saiyans… training… surviving on his own till then…

The _whole_ conversation flashed through his mind in the tiniest fraction of a second.

In _that_ moment, while his mind was doing its own thing in the background, he took note of two things.

His mind was _accelerating_ , rather than slowing down…

…and he was beginning to experience the first signs of a very _familiar_ sensation.

He placed it immediately.

In the past, back before he had ever been out here by himself, there were occasions where he would be unable to fall asleep, no matter what he did. Whether it was a thought that wouldn't leave him alone, or something else entirely, on _those_ particular occasions, he would just lie in bed and essentially _wait_.

 _Sometimes_ when he did that, eventually, he would begin to _essentially_ , hallucinate. Whether it was seeing weird lights on the back of his eyelids, or hearing various sounds in his head…

Or…

 _Sometimes_ , and the very reason he was even recalling these particular experiences, he would feel what he could only describe as, the feeling of falling into himself, _somehow_.

Falling through his mattress and into his mind. It happened when he remained _perfectly_ still for a significant period of time while trying to fall asleep, despite his mind still wandering as it always did.

The feeling had been so _weird_ to him back then that he had started to read up on it, to see if it happened to _other_ people. He was lead into the world of lucid dreaming, and the various ways to induce them soon after…

It turned out that it was possible to manipulate these feelings in a few different ways to sort of fall asleep without really falling asleep.

To remain conscious as his dreams began, and to freely manipulate them as a result.

His overall experience with these _controllable_ dreams, had been what allowed him to write off some of the impossible occurrences that had happened to him recently as _just dreams_ in the first place. He had had some _crazy_ ones long before ever living out here…

But _that_ was hardly the point.

 _Now_ however, he was experiencing that very same sensation that so often precluded an incredibly vivid dream.

He was _hardly_ in a quiet environment ideal for sleep however. So it didn't make much sense why that would be the case.

Sure enough, the feeling intensified, and he felt himself begin to _fall_.

His surroundings blurred and faded, and he felt himself get pulled _downwards_.

He started falling, spinning rapidly the whole time, through some sort of black _void_.

He couldn't see or feel _anything_ other than the pressure on the back of his eyes and the inside of his skull from the rapid spinning his body was _apparently_ experiencing.

 _Hallucinations brought on by head trauma_ , was the most probable explanation he could come up with.

In other words, his brain had probably just _fried_ due to everything that he just went through.

Because just _falling_ _asleep,_ was a bit of a stretch. Perhaps he had simply lost consciousness…

At least the pain in the _rest_ of his body was beginning to fade…

So… _silver lining_.

If it stayed like _this_ , then maybe his imminent death wouldn't be as painful as he had originally thought.

He could just sit back and relax as his body and mind slowly shut down.

He was _finished_.

He felt himself exhale.

With it, he felt himself let go of _all_ of his concerns, worries, and attachments, and he accepted his fate. He didn't like it, but he could accept it.

He was _ready_.

…

A feeling that could only be described as his face slamming into _concrete_ immediately crushed _that_ thought before it could _really_ take hold.

 _No_.

It was happening _again_ wasn't it?

Another one of _those_ dreams.

That impact had _hurt_.

A dream so _vivid_ that he could even experience _pain_ in it.

Just like that one he had about the saiyans in the forest, and the one about Piccolo too…

He had had vivid dreams all his life, but ones that actually _hurt_ had only started after _those_ two.

When he opened his eyes, there was a wooden table in front of him.

The ' _room'_ he was in, for lack of a better word, was still black, he wasn't spinning anymore, and he knew _immediately_ that this was a dream of some sort. It just had that dream _feel_ to it.

The dead silence was another giveaway. It was that special kind of silence that wasn't really silent. He could hear that same low pitched vibration that was always present no matter how quiet the environment, and his ears were ringing.

He had _actually_ fallen asleep. Or passed out, or something of that nature. A pretty unbelievable feat if he said so himself, given the situation he had _just_ been in.

On the table there were various puzzle pieces linked together forming an incomplete picture. And there were quite a few pieces missing. Some were even on the floor around him.

He was seated in a simple wooden chair.

Other than the chair and table, the room was empty.

His head was still _swimming_ , but the weirdest part about whatever _this_ was, was the fact that he could actually _feel_ his memories inside of these puzzle pieces. His entire life was here, scattered about on the table and now out of order.

His head had apparently struck the table with a good deal of force and knocked around some of the pieces. That's what that impact had been.

And he _knew_ the pieces were out of order because they were _his_ memories. For some reason he just _knew_ what the picture was supposed to look like.

It didn't make a whole lot of sense _logically_ , but he had enough experience with completely _random_ dreams like this one to know that they hardly _ever_ did.

In a daze, he just looked at the broken picture of his life in front of him for a few moments, trying to make _sense_ of everything.

Everything looked _backwards_ , and he could actually _feel_ how weirdly his memories were clashing with each other at the moment. It was as if moving these pieces around had actually _scrambled_ his memories. Was he supposed to put them back in order?

Because _this_ picture made no sense at all.

He reached for a random piece in front of him, picked it up, and _froze_ when he looked back at the broken picture once again.

…

How?

He was _baffled_.

How had he missed _that_ much?

He had always seen himself as a skeptical person, but there were _huge_ problems with the universe as he understood it. _Fundamental_ contradictions that were now _screaming_ at him. And _this_ was the first time he had ever heard them. There were a whole _slew_ of _very_ basic questions that he didn't have the answers for. And for _some_ reason, he had never even _thought_ to ask _any_ of them before now.

For the first time _ever_ , it felt like he could truly look back on his life _objectively_. Without bias, and with a clear mind.

There were _so_ many things about his life that just made _no_ sense. And they were _all_ things that he took for granted and never questioned.

Heck, they were all things that _nobody_ seemed to talk about. Even his dad had never really seemed to care about them.

The stories his dad had mentioned, and the truths that science had uncovered, were _not at all compatibl_ e.

Yet somehow, they both seemed to be true.

The dead coming back to life, the fact that the Dragonballs even existed, the fact that they _could_ even exist, magic, Ki, talking animals…

 _All_ topics science had yet to explain. Mostly because humans as a whole weren't aware that most of those things could even happen. These were truths that were basically only known to his dad's group of friends and a few others who for some reason, kept it to themselves.

The methodology of science, was unquestionably the _best_ way to uncover the truth on _any_ topic. He knew this. He knew to question everything, but for some reason, all of those stories his dad had told, all of the strange events he had seen, _experienced_ … he just accepted them _all_ at face value.

He only applied his skepticism to the things that _humans_ did. And _never_ to the things that his dad did.

And he knew why.

Frankly, he was disappointed in himself for falling for it too.

It was basically a logical fallacy. He accepted everything his dad _did_ , and everything he _said_ without question because it was his _dad_. If some powerless _human_ had said or done any of the things that his dad had, he'd probably think them crazy, or pulling some sort of magic trick.

There was a _divide_ in his mind.

On _one_ side, he perceived the universe according to the laws of quantum mechanics, relativity, and all manner of other mathematical and scientific models, that when brought together, made testable predictions, had tremendous explanatory power, and showcased just how _elegant_ the universe actually was.

And on the _other_ , he viewed the world as a magical place, where people could fly, supernatural events happened all the time, and magic was _very_ real. Every time he had a question about something on _this_ side, someone would do some hand waving, throw around the term 'magic' or 'Ki' and then the conversation would be over. Worse yet, he'd be _satisfied_ with those answers.

He hadn't even noticed until _this_ moment.

 _All_ of the questions he had were on the supernatural side of the divide. _Literally all_. On the scientific, the _human_ side, _all_ of his questions were either _answered_ , he knew _could_ be answered given enough time, or he knew to be _unknowable_. The limits were _very_ clearly defined there.

Because the methods of science were unquestionably, the _best_ pathway to the truth.

He wanted _that_ clarity on the _other_ side of the divide.

So he needed to knock it down.

There were _so_ many implications hidden in the broken picture in front of him that he'd probably have to spend _weeks_ puzzling them all out.

There were _so_ many that he didn't even know how or where to start.

It was actually pretty overwhelming.

 _This_ had never happened before. Having so many truths in front of him that he was actually afraid of learning them. He knew that one would lead to another, and another, and he didn't know if it would ever end.

He was actually _afraid_.

But… he really wanted to know.

He just needed to take the first step.

He would take them on, one at a time, and see where they lead.

He let out a breath, then he looked at the piece still in his hand…

He'd start _here_ …

…

He relived the memory. Then, once it finished, he smiled.

At _that_ exact moment, he understood what his mind had been up to all this time. It _hadn't_ given up after all.

In the past, some of his _greatest_ sources of inspiration came from remembered conversations. He would either talk to his dad about something, or he'd read a book one day, then _abruptly_ , out of the blue _months_ after the fact, he'd remember that conversation and come up with brand new, completely out of the box ideas about it that he hadn't even _considered_ before.

In some cases those ideas had been _monumental_ … at least in _his_ opinion…

It _just_ happened again.

 _This_ had been one of those moments.

Only this time it was _huge_.

That memory had been his first step in bridging the gap between the two sides of the divide, and it had shattered his fundamental understanding of the universe.

Again.

He was _really_ beginning to see how _little_ he actually knew.

Even if his subconscious mind _wasn't_ some separate entity actively looking out for him, he _wanted_ to think that this whole situation was planned by it somehow. _He_ certainly hadn't been the one to orchestrate this.

No, his _mind_ planned this. It was scanning through his memories to try and find _just_ such an event after failing to find anything useful in the surrounding environment.

It was trying to _inspire_ him, so that he would take _drastic_ measures.

And it succeeded.

The puzzle piece… it had been a single sentence that Piccolo had mentioned, in passing. He probably hadn't meant anything by it at the time, but the implications hidden within it, nearly _floored_ him.

He had had all of the pieces before now, but he just hadn't put them together.

 _'Your dad will be back in a years' time after he gets wished back to life with the Dragonballs.'_

 _That_ was what he had said.

After he had remembered that statement, he had, what could only be described as a moment of _clarity_ with the universe where _everything_ seemed to make sense.

He understood the rules of the Dragonballs. The basics anyways. You gather up all seven and you get _one_ wish, then you have to wait a year until you can make another one. They turn into stone in the meantime.

Easy enough, but now that he was thinking back on everything that had happened after Radditz had arrived, there were some questions that he hadn't asked or even thought about. _Really_ basic questions that he definitely _should_ have.

The first one was simple.

Why was everyone _waiting_?

The Dragonballs _had_ been active at the time, and _still_ _were_ since no wish had been made recently. Some of them were still scattered around the world at the moment, or at least they were back _then_ , but with the strength of his dad's friends', and Bulma's dragon radar there was _no_ way it would take a full year for them to gather them all up.

Why not _immediately_ wish his dad back to life the _instant_ they were all gathered?

Why _specifically_ wait _one_ year?

For a moment he had considered that maybe Piccolo had just meant that his dad would be wished back to life as soon as possible and that he would only get to _see_ his dad in a years' time when the saiyan's arrived…

But he had dismissed the idea because if his dad was around, there would be no reason for Piccolo to train him at all. His dad would eventually show up one day to take him back if he was alive.

Yet Piccolo had said that he was going to train him after six whole _months_ had passed. He had even implied that the training would continue until the moment that the saiyan's arrived.

It wouldn't take _that_ long for the Dragonballs to be gathered if they were really _serious_ about gathering them.

His dad wouldn't allow Piccolo to train him either if he could stop it. They were enemies after all. Not to mention, there would be no _need_ for Piccolo to go through the effort if his dad was alive at the time.

If it was truly necessary for him to be trained, then his dad would do it himself if he could.

But he _won't_.

Because he _won't_ be alive at the time.

His dad's group of friends were _specifically_ waiting until _just_ before the saiyan's arrive to wish him back to life.

Which means that they have a _reason_ for it.

It didn't even matter what that reason was. The fact that there was a reason at all, was the truly mind blowing part.

The fact that they were deliberately waiting to make the wish was the _first_ thing that his mind had honed in on.

His dad's friends' wouldn't let his dad suffer unnecessarily, which means, quite simply, that his dad _still_ existed in some form despite being dead, _and_ he was doing something extremely important.

He had some task at the moment that _required_ him to stay dead.

It's the only conclusion he could come up with.

He himself, had no way of knowing what that was, but if he were to take a guess it would probably involve some sort of training. It would _have_ to.

Otherwise his dad would need to be brought back to life as soon as possible so that he could continue his training _here_. As strong as he was _now_ , he wasn't strong enough to stand up to Radditz, and the incoming saiyan's were supposed to be even _stronger_.

But in _any_ case, what his dad was doing at the moment wasn't the part that flipped his entire world upside down.

The part that _did_ , was the fact that his dad wasn't really dead, and the implications that followed.

At least, his dad wasn't dead according to his _previous_ understanding of what death was.

He had heard stories and various mentions of the _other world_ from his dad in the past, but honestly, it hadn't made a lot of sense. As a result, he had just assumed that his dad was talking about such a place metaphorically, instead of literally. An almost _religious_ way of referring to the place people went to when they died.

But _no_ , apparently, that was not the case at all. In fact, if his revelation was correct, not only was the other world a _real_ place, but he could think of it as a separate _universe_ almost.

He could also deduce, that the universe he currently resided in was _subservient_ to it in a similar manner that an animal enclosure was at a _zoo_. There were some differences obviously, but the analogy wasn't too far off.

Additionally, it was possible to travel between these two universes under certain circumstances.

Death _didn't even exist at all_. If it did, the Dragonballs _wouldn't_ be able to restore someone to life.

There were basically _two_ possibilities to explain what happened when someone was wished back to life with the Dragonballs.

The _first_ one was that the dragon recreates the person from _scratch_. This would create a perfect _clone_ of the original person with all the same memories and traits as the person who had died. But it wouldn't actually _be_ them. Just an indistinguishable fake. The person that had actually died would still be dead.

 _This_ possibility he was able to dismiss because his dad's friends were _waiting_ to make this exact wish on his dad. If there _wasn't_ an important reason for his dad to stay dead, then they would _need_ to wish him back as soon as possible so that he can spend as much time as possible training and preparing for the saiyans.

The _second_ possibility was the one that was _far_ more likely. The _soul_ of someone who died was actually _moved_ somewhere at the moment of death, and _stored_. The other world was actually a _real_ place here.

The act of _dying_ was actually nothing more than being _moved_ from _one_ location to _another_. And wishing someone back to life with the Dragonballs did nothing more than move them _back_ again.

When people die they leave their body behind. Which means that the soul _has_ to exist in some manner as well. _Some_ part of them has to go to the other world, and it clearly _isn't_ the body…

Upon making the wish in this scenario, the dragon would simply grab the person's soul from the other world, recreate their body from scratch, and then _stuff_ the soul back inside it.

Which means that, technically speaking, _he_ wasn't a half saiyan- half human hybrid at all.

He was a _soul_ that had been essentially _stuffed_ into the _body_ of a half saiyan- half human hybrid at the moment of his birth.

All sorts of implications followed that fact alone. From family bonds not being _nearly_ as close as he originally thought that they were, _especially_ if some sort of reincarnation cycle existed, as is suggested in many religions, to the fact that there was a _being_ out there somewhere that was powerful enough to create life, but that also continues to let a significant number of their creations suffer unnecessarily. A god basically, that was either not all powerful, or not all good.

 _Someone_ had to create the living world, and _someone_ has to oversee it…

But in _any_ case, while interesting to think about, once again, _those_ particular ideas weren't the main focus here.

They were merely stepping stones to the _true_ conclusion he had reached.

He would come back and think about _those_ ideas later.

The part that _did_ matter, was the part that _directly_ _applied_ to his _current_ situation.

At the _core_ of his character there was nothing but fear. That's what he had concluded only a second or two before _all_ of this new information had revealed itself.

He had been _wrong_.

There was a fundamental contradiction he had overlooked.

The _soul_ exists.

That's what _he_ is. A soul trapped in a body.

But, _science_ has revealed that emotions, thoughts, memories, even personality, can all be changed by purely physical and chemical means.

You can induce fear through drugs, or by altering the levels of various neurotransmitters in the brain.

But he was a _soul_.

How did physical changes to the _body_ change the way his _soul_ worked if his soul can exist without his body?

It didn't, he realized. It was an _illusion_.

When someone died they didn't just become emotionless rocks in the otherworld. If they did, his dad wouldn't be training to fight the saiyans. He wouldn't _care_ to.

People kept their personalities _after_ they died.

A person's _true_ character was stored in their _soul_ , _not_ in the physical make-up of their body, or the synapses in the brain.

As always, he could explain it through the use of an analogy.

Everything that _he_ was, was stored in his soul. _All_ of his thoughts, memories, and personality was there.

His body was a _prison_ that he was locked in. A prison that he was _absolutely_ _at the mercy of_. When his body was affected by something, the corresponding response would be _beamed_ into his soul somehow.

It was like an IV drip of _poison_. One that he couldn't disconnect.

When his body _decided_ to experience something, or when the chemical makeup of it was _altered_ , he had _no choice_ but to experience it himself. All of those chemical imbalances _directly_ influenced his emotional state against his will.

And _that_ was why he was so afraid all the time.

He wasn't a coward at all. He possessed a body with a high affinity for fear. A body that was _highly_ sensitive to changes. The body of a _child_. In particular, the chemicals that generated the fear response were _abundant_ in his body. It wasn't actually a character defect. He had just been unlucky enough to be born with a body that did that.

His body wasn't him.

It all made sense.

He had _his_ own set of emotions, and his body had _its_ own. And they clashed. His body was filled _completely_ with fear, and his soul was calm and calculating. He felt the effects of _both_ , but since his soul did not need his body to survive, and could exist in the other world _freely_ , the emotions that his body forced him to experience _were not real_.

So he shouldn't care about them.

The fear he was feeling now, _was not real_.

Even _now_ , as the black room around him shattered, its purpose fulfilled, and he was once again faced with his death, he could see the proof for himself.

His body, locked up in uncontrollable fear and pain, in a state so pitiful he would never have a chance of moving it properly…

And then there was _him_. The prisoner stuck inside. Calm, calculating, and with _absolute_ _freedom_ of thought. It was the one thing his body couldn't take away from him through fear alone.

He could think about _cats_ if he wanted to. Or _any_ topic just as arbitrary.

No matter _how_ debilitating the signal his body was beaming into him was, he could think about whatever he wanted to.

He could see the situation for what it was now.

Just as he was at the mercy of his body's chemical and physical changes, so too was his body at the mercy of his decisions.

It went where he took it, and he felt what it sent him. No matter how unnecessarily over-exaggerated the signal it sent him was, he _felt_ it.

But now that he understood what was going on, he wouldn't be fooled by it anymore.

He felt his eyes close.

Then he took what he could only describe as a _mental step back_.

He _wasn't_ in a life threatening situation, about to be eaten by a dinosaur.

He was playing a game.

A game of strategy.

One with a very _simple_ premise.

A game that involved maneuvering a puppet out of danger. He had _very_ limited control over what it could do, and sometimes it would do things that he didn't want it to.

He had to _maneuver_ it out of danger and essentially _buy time_ until he found an opportunity to get it to safety, all while under what he could only describe as a _fear_ _illusion_ for an added layer of difficulty.

And if he lost, he would be moved to an unknown location in the other world to see what happened next. All of the _fake_ feelings of pain and fear that he was _swamped_ with would disappear at that point.

They would disappear if he lost the game.

To be honest, it didn't even sound that bad apart from _one_ thing.

When he was in the living world, at _any_ time he could make the decision to move to the other world. _Suicide_ essentially. It wasn't _nearly_ as dark a topic now that he understood it _entirely_ , and it could be undone with the Dragonballs.

But, when in the other world, he couldn't make the decision to go _back_ again by some sort of anti-suicide, it was all out of his hands when he got there.

 _Maybe_ someone would wish him back to life with the Dragonballs eventually, but maybe _not_.

 _That_ was the reason why he wanted to win the game. To have his life in his own hands for as long as possible.

He only had that control when he was alive.

In the other world, his fate was in the hands of whatever powers oversee it.

So he _would_ win.

There were _no_ limitations on what he could do in this game, apart from the physical capabilities of the _puppet_ he was stuck in.

With the change in mindset, potential solutions that would be deemed _so_ reckless and insane that nobody else would ever even _consider_ them as options _suddenly_ opened up.

There was actually only _one_ that he could see.

But that was _one_ more than there had been previously…

Since his body's muscles were locked up from the crippling levels of fear and pain it was flooded with, he needed to get _creative_ with how he was going to move it around.

He _couldn't_ move his muscles naturally. That was out of the question. The fear and pain had made it impossible.

But his body wasn't special by any means. At the atomic level it was made out of the same stuff as rocks. It was just infinitely more complex and intricate. But it was _ultimately_ just atoms.

As it just so happens, he had _just_ invented a technique that allowed him to _enhance_ his body's normal movement capabilities. He had been using it pretty one dimension-ally though. Just _sticking_ to things.

But, he had proven that it _was_ possible to contract a ball of energy to the point where its density essentially _flash_ froze it to whatever he had pumped it into.

Since his body was a regular, if highly intricate object, he would use _it_ as the thing he would stick his energy to.

His Ki was controlled by his _mind_ , which was perfectly clear and focused, unlike his body. So he could _still_ use his energy. However he had so little of it remaining that he couldn't hope to actually defend against an attack, let alone fight off a dinosaur, so he had to use it _sparingly_.

He also had _complete_ mental control over his energy, even when compressed. It was what allowed him to stick to things in the first place.

The process was simple.

 _Flood_ his body with energy, _compress_ said energy until it stuck to his body, _then_ move the energy.

His body would then be _dragged_ along for the ride.

Movement _without_ muscles.

But he had to be careful with it.

There were _inhibitors_ in his body's nervous system that prevented unnatural muscle movement.

For example, when moving his body normally using his _muscles_ , he could only extend his elbow so far. It stopped at about a hundred and eighty degrees. His muscles were _not_ designed to move it any further than that.

If he used his _energy_ though instead of his muscles, while also _ignoring_ all of the pain that his body was sending him, he would _not_ experience these limitations, and he could _very_ easily hyper extend his limbs and _break_ them.

He needed to be aware of that.

Focusing on his energy, he pumped it into his body.

He felt it follow along the contours of his body, and when he was ready, he compressed it until he felt it _lock_ in place, and then he _pulled_.

He _left_ the ground.

In _that_ instant, _two_ mysteries on his list were solved. He figured out _both_ how to fly, _and_ how martial artists like his dad were able to survive rapid, _near instantaneous_ accelerations that the atomic bonds within their bodies _could not_ otherwise withstand.

Flight was so _deceptively_ simple. He had been overthinking it all this time.

During his training and experimentation, he had figured that he needed a _ton_ of energy continuously being fired out of his feet like a _rocket_ to create the thrust needed. He needed a counter force to _gravity_ after all. His plan had originally been to achieve flight via conservation of momentum. A method that he had nowhere _near_ enough energy to pull off.

 _Another_ idea he had entertained for a few moments but immediately dismissed even _earlier_ on, was actually the right answer apparently. He just needed his energy attached to him, then he just had to lift his energy. Will it upwards _harder_ than gravity pulls him downwards.

The reason he had dismissed it earlier, was because he had thought that doing something so _simple_ was exactly like sitting down on a chair, and trying to achieve flight by pulling up on the armrests. If you could lift your own weight _plus_ the weight of the chair, than _surely_ you could lift off from the ground…

Only you _couldn't_ , because pulling the chair _up_ , pulled _you_ down with just as much force.

He hadn't realized the difference.

 _Here_ , when willing his energy upwards, there was _no_ opposing force pulling him down like with the chair. He _only_ had gravity to overcome.

And _that_ wasn't very strong.

As weak as it was however, he just didn't have enough energy left to just fly away.

Because flying _did_ cost energy.

It wasn't much, just enough to essentially maintain a ball of Ki the size of his own body, but he was already running _dangerously_ low.

 _Immediately_ after feeling his back leave the ground, he _spun_ , and pulled to the left, executing a _roll_ that positioned him _just_ outside the danger zone…

Almost.

He felt something _rough_ scrape along his cheek, which strangely enough, _burned_ him.

It took him only a moment to figure out that he had just received _rug_ -burn via _dinosaur_ skin.

An _odd_ injury to be sure.

 _Completing_ the roll, he used his energy to create a brace for his right leg, compacting it as much as possible to prevent any movement upon his landing. He _knew_ it was injured, but he didn't know how badly. But either way, a sudden spike in pain, _fake_ as it was, might _break_ his concentration.

He landed on _air_ , after seamlessly, and instinctually initiating his air walking technique.

There was _no_ sudden pain.

He had managed to dissipate the impact _perfectly_ to prevent it.

He hadn't used his muscles at _all_ , either.

 _That_ was how _they_ did it. People like his dad and Piccolo.

They weren't super strong fighters at all. Not due to their muscles at least. They were doing the same thing that he was.

Their bodies were made out of matter. And matter, no matter _how_ dense had _finite_ tensile strength. Their muscles, despite being strong, had a theoretical limit to how strong they could become.

Because they were made out of _matter_.

It was a biological barrier that _no_ amount of strength training would _ever_ overcome.

Yet they just seemed to keep increasing in power over the years despite this limit.

 _This_ was what his dad had meant when he said that Ki was used to surpass the body's biological limits.

It was because they weren't using their muscles at all. They were manipulating their energy, sticking it to their bodies, and flinging themselves around like _puppets_. Then when they impact with something at high speed, they protect their bodies with the same method that _he_ had used earlier with that stick. An energy barrier that dissipated the impact that extended _just_ above their skin.

The barrier did a lot of things. It protected the body from any external impacts much like a cushion, but it _also_ prevented all of the atoms and molecules _within_ the body from being ripped apart.

If you threw a punch at a thousand miles an hour for example, _no_ amount of external 'cushioning' would stop your body from ripping itself apart due to the sudden deceleration at the end of the punch.

When your fist stops at the end of this hypothetical punch, inertia kicks in and the atoms in your arm will want to tear themselves apart and keep going despite _any_ energy barrier applied on the outside.

The atomic bonds between various molecules in the body would _not_ handle the strain of such an exertion, and when taken to the extreme, the actual _nuclei_ of these atoms could _fission_ or be otherwise torn apart.

An external cushion would keep all of the atoms within its confines, but they would be _scrambled_. _Liquefied_ even.

 _No_ amount of external protection would stop this.

A fact that lead to his _next_ insight.

Ki was _non-primitive_.

Meaning, it was not a simple energy that he had perfect control over. It could act _independently_ of his own will, to an extent.

To prevent the complete destruction of the body from throwing a punch at such an extreme speed, _two_ things had to happen.

 _First_ , the relative distances between every single atom or molecule in the body, and its neighbour, could _not_ change significantly. They had to remain within specific tolerances to allow natural body movements and _nothing_ more. If they didn't stay in this range, the body would begin to tear itself apart.

And _second_ , there _has_ to be a force that compacts _all_ of the various atoms, molecules, and subatomic particles _together_ , _forcing_ them to maintain their shape. This would counteract the _extreme_ forces that these particles would otherwise experience by their own inertia under such conditions.

If _these_ two things happened, the body _could_ _not_ be damaged at all, no matter _how_ rapid the acceleration.

And since his dad fought at such speeds all the time, without consequence, this _had_ to be the case.

Compacting objects together like this was very easy to do on a large scale. He did it all the time in his Ki experiments. The problem arose when it came to _smaller_ objects.

Even if he _could_ find a way to compact something so _ludicrously_ small, such as a handful of atoms, together, there was _no_ way he would be able to do the same on the countless _billions_ of atoms that make up his body, in such a way that _all_ of them maintain their proper shape and structure, at once. There were just _far_ too many. And _all_ of them required different magnitudes of forces, and in different directions.

This was where his _sponge-in-water_ analogy that he had been using to explain using that stick as an effective weapon earlier, broke down.

It sort of worked, but it _didn't_ show _everything_.

 _This_ time, his _body_ was the sponge, instead of the stick from earlier. The sponge being submerged represents what his body was like when he stuck his energy to it.

But _that_ was the extent of his control over his energy.

He told it where to go. Told it to defend _this_ limb, or _that_ one, or to move _this_ body part in _that_ direction, and then his _energy_ handled all of the internal inertia negation and force cancelling. The _details_ too complex for _any_ one person to calculate themselves.

His energy would automatically contour to all of the various atoms and molecules in his body, and provide _all_ of these various internal forces to hold everything together.

 _That_ way, as long as he had energy left to use, his body wouldn't break down due to the rapid accelerations it experienced.

His energy did this _totally_ independently without his input.

There was _so_ much going on behind the scenes in each movement. But as long as he had enough Ki, and was skilled enough in energy manipulation to keep all of these variables in check, there was literally _no_ conceivable limit to how fast he could move.

 _None_ of that mattered yet though. He was nowhere near fast enough to destroy his own body with his movements.

That would come _later_.

Standing perfectly still, he tilted his head to the left. Just enough to see the dinosaur's behind him.

His energy was low. He wouldn't be able to take out even _one_ of these dinosaurs, let alone the other _seven_ that were now closing in on him.

But he didn't need to.

He highly doubted that there were many people who would have seen the solution to this situation, if _they_ had been in it.

It was actually pretty brilliant, if he said so himself.

Running was not an option, and neither was fighting.

He needed to position himself in such a way that _no_ dinosaur could kill him. Buying time, essentially.

After all of his revelations he had just went through, he had realized that the dinosaurs themselves, weren't intrinsically dangerous. The emotional response his body was sending him was wrong, or rather, it was short-sighted.

Only _two_ parts of each dinosaur were actually dangerous.

The teeth, and the stomach. He could just _dodge_ the other limbs…

It just so happened that there was a location, _between_ those two dangerous places that was _perfectly_ safe.

A razor's edge.

He heard a roar, and in his peripherals, another T-Rex lunged towards him with its jaws _wide_ open.

So he enacted his plan, and _jumped inside_.

After passing between its teeth, he was encased in shadow. He bounced off something slimy, and wet, before he began flooding his right arm with energy. He made it past the tongue, and _punched_ the wall at the back of its throat as hard as he could manage.

As expected the wall of cartilage gave way, and he found himself buried _shoulder deep_ in the wall of its esophagus.

He felt himself get _drenched_ in some sort of warm liquid- _blood_ in all likelihood, and he immediately manipulated the energy in his arms and legs, to _stick_ to the wall.

He had anticipated the sudden bout of _violent thrashing_ that immediately ensued by the victim of his surprise attack, and he was prepared for it.

It began throwing its weight around as hard as it could, trying to dislodge him, but he wouldn't budge. He _refused_ to.

He didn't really care about this _thing_. In fact, _that_ was an understatement. Once he bought enough time and recovered, he had _every_ intention of breaking out, and in an ironic twist of fate, making _this_ thing _his_ dinner.

They had the audacity to ruin his day, set him back in his training, _and_ try and eat him. He was going to hunt them down and kill them all.

He wouldn't have to worry about food for a while then.

He could still _feel_ the pain in his leg from that fall.

It _pissed_ him off.

Lashing out with his left arm, he punched _through_ the wall, and buried it inside, alongside his right.

Then he started _digging_.

He needed a place to rest, so he was going to _carve_ a hole in the wall large enough for him to fit inside safely.

Then he'd wait.

It was _his_ turn now.

* * *

 **A/N: Still no beta reader as of yet.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**


	14. Chapter 14: The Wrong Day

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Alright, it's been a while. Again. Sorry. Taking summer school to hopefully graduate sooner, writers block, lack of motivation, work, you know, the usual.**

 **This was meant to be a short chapter, but then it sort of just grew.**

 **And I have mixed feelings about it. I might still edit it a bit if there are any problems I've overlooked. But for the most part, this is the next chapter.**

 **Hope you guys like it.**

 **Hopefully, I'll get out of this rut I'm in and update more often. I really want to get to the saiyans…**

 **-** **LeviTamm**

* * *

 _"Interesting…"_

A voice from _that_ day spoke up through the silence.

He could hear it perfectly, even though he knew that the voice was in his head.

 _"A tail?"_

He had had his eyes _closed_ at the time, so he could only remember the sound.

 _"Now_ there _is a true saiyan."_

It was his _uncle_ Radditz.

He could still _feel_ the chills that ran up and down his spine when he felt that monster's gaze land on him.

 _"Alright, I'll take the boy instead…"_

 _…_

He was supposed to meet his dad's friends that day.

It was supposed to be fun.

…

 _"A tail?"_

The voice echoed once more in the silence.

…

Huh.

What would have happened if he had _hidden_ it that day?

The thought hadn't even occurred to him at the time.

He had been paralyzed by fear, and his brain had just shut down.

He could always think _clearly_ when he was on his own, but when he was in a real life situation, surrounded by people he didn't know, simple things like that just…

Pain.

…they just didn't….

Pain.

…occur to him.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with disgustingly musty air… held it in… and let out a sigh.

 _Ignore_ it.

What would have changed if his uncle _hadn't_ seen his tail that day?

Maybe he wouldn't have been identified as his father's son.

Would he have been kidnapped at all?

His dad would have probably still fought him.

But his dad's friends had been there too…

Would _they_ have made any difference?

How strong were they?

Would anything have changed?

…

Pain.

…

He was tired.

 _So_ tired.

He had been for a while…

But the pain was starting up again…

So he _finally_ opened his eyes.

…

The same as usual.

…

It was _way_ too dark to see anything.

…

Compacting his Ki down on his injured leg, he shifted it slightly and rolled onto his back.

He needed to flip over every now and then to dull the pain again.

Just… _ignoring_ it, was _hard_.

It would just keep building up gradually until he couldn't anymore…

So he'd need to move…

And then it wouldn't take long at all for him to fall asleep again.

…

It wouldn't take long at all…

…

* * *

The teeth and the stomach had been his only two concerns at the time.

He could easily survive as long as he avoided those two places, in theory.

So he had dug a hole at the back of this particular T-Rex's throat, because it had been the closest one to him at the time.

The hole was _just_ large enough for him to fit inside comfortably when he was finished.

And it had taken every last bit of his energy to finish it.

He had been running _completely_ on fumes at the time, so when he finally stopped, and the adrenaline had run out, he was _done_.

He had just passed out after finishing.

…

He had no idea how long he had slept, but that first day had been the worst.

Waking up in a confined space, covered in slime, with all sorts of strange noises emanating from all around him…

And then there was the _smell_.

He hadn't noticed it when he was digging the hole originally, but he sure noticed it then.

He had thrown up.

It was _bad_.

…

But it had faded, eventually.

After waking up, he had tried assessing the damage his body had taken.

And he was _surprised_.

It had been _way_ worse than he remembered.

Something in his leg was broken. It had to be. The pain was even _worse_ than it had been just after the fall off that mountain.

He didn't know if it was a full break, or a fracture, but whatever it was, it _hurt_.

Then there were all sorts of aches and pains that he hadn't even _noticed_ previously.

It felt like his entire abdomen was a giant bruise.

The same with the entire left side of his chest.

Countless cuts and scrapes littered his arms and legs, and made themselves known.

Just _breathing_ hurt.

He could feel the tears in all of his muscles from the strain of overuse.

But the worst had been his _head_.

It felt like someone had grabbed the right side of his brain, and another grabbed the left, then they both started pulling in opposite directions.

It felt like he was being _split_ in half.

He didn't really remember much of what happened after that...

He had just woken up again in the same place. The pain had still been there, but it had been _noticeably_ less intense.

And the smell had been gone.

But he hadn't been able to move.

So he just lay there.

Eventually, he had noticed the pain in his leg getting worse and worse, so he had had to make a _monumental_ effort, in trying to turn over onto his stomach, to get his leg into a better position where the pain was more manageable.

Then he had _alternated_.

He would lay on one side, then flip over. Then lay on _that_ side for a while. Then he'd flip again when the pain became too intense…

And he'd lost all track of time.

He had no idea how long he had been inside this thing…

But he had had a _lot_ of dreams in that time.

And he had re-lived a _lot_ of memories.

But it had all been a haze, mostly.

A haze of pain and half-remembered dreams.

Eventually however, after what felt like an eternity… something finally _changed_.

The fog in his mind cleared just enough for him to start thinking again.

His mind had finally rebooted, and he was able to focus for the first time since he had gotten himself into his situation in the first place.

The pain had gone down to a point where he could ignore it effectively. And all of a sudden, new ideas started appearing in his head.

And with them, he started running some Ki experiments once again to pass the time…

* * *

Unfortunately, a good portion of his energy had still been recovering.

So anything that used too much of it was out of the question.

But what he had had in mind didn't take too much.

So, with nothing else to do in the meantime, he started on his first experiment.

It took a long time, and a lot of trial and error to get right.

Several… days? Sleep cycles?

He had passed out a lot in between attempts.

…

The concept was simple.

Thin out his Ki, and spread it out over a large area.

It would contour to the body of the dinosaur around him, but would be so thin that it wouldn't enhance the things durability at all.

Instead, by taking advantage of a different property of his energy…

He would bring back the light.

…

It was the only way he could describe it.

He could _feel_ his Ki, when it was outside of his body.

He could _feel_ its shape and structure.

He intuitively understood where his energy was, and how big the area it covered was.

In other words, by shaping his energy to exactly match the body of the dinosaur around him, he now had a rough mental map of the thing's body inside his head.

He knew how far away the stomach was, how far away the mouth was, and where he was in relation to everything.

It had allowed him to see again…

* * *

More time passed.

Eventually, moving wasn't as difficult… as long as he didn't use his muscles to do it.

Self-puppetry, after a time, allowed him to move freely.

He could stretch out his arms, and his legs, all without flexing his muscles, or causing further injury to himself.

It was a weird feeling at first. Feeling himself move around while feeling totally relaxed…

It felt almost like being possessed by a ghost…

…

Only _he_ was the ghost…

But he couldn't do much. Just sit and wait to heal mostly…

And _watch_ how the thing around him moved, with his new ability…

* * *

He tested his new sensing ability's limits eventually.

He tried pushing it out farther than the constraints of the dinosaur.

He had been inspired one day.

Another hazy memory had played out in his head. A single incident that was once again, seemingly insignificant at first…

His dad had been _aware_ of his uncle's arrival on _that_ day, beforehand.

He had jolted and spun around abruptly and mentioned a powerful being heading towards the island they had been on at the time, for that reunion, a few moments before it had become visible.

He could remember it clearly now.

His dad was able to see things without his eyes at _extreme_ distances, and now he wanted to be able to do it himself.

It had always been a mystery to him how his dad had been able to do things like that, but this new technique seemed to provide an answer.

He was essentially trying to make a ball of Ki so thin that it was transparent, and so large that it contained his whole body, the body of the surrounding dinosaur, _and_ a sizeable portion of the surrounding environment.

Then all he'd need to do is move his energy around slightly, and _feel_ the resistance that any obstructions in the environment would provide.

Pumping his Ki through a solid object was more difficult than pumping it through open air, after all, and he would feel this difference in his energy.

With his intuitive understanding of his own energy distribution, he'd then be able to tell how far away these objects were, and create a mental map of his surroundings.

That had been the theory anyways.

…

And once again, that day, he had been reminded of why he loved his brain so much…

* * *

He had woken up hungry one day.

Perhaps that was an understatement.

His stomach had been _screaming_ at him.

For _some_ reason, he hadn't been hungry at _all_ during his entire stay inside his host.

He had been forcing himself to eat at least small amounts however, just to be safe, or at least trying to…

Most of the time however, he couldn't keep it down.

He had been living like a parasite.

He knew where the meat was, so he'd dig to it. He'd rip a chunk out, and cook it with his energy.

That single chunk was usually enough to last until he eventually fell asleep, and woke up again.

It seemed that his body was now starting to recover its old appetite…

Which was good news.

It meant he was recovering.

It was only a matter of time now…

* * *

When was the last time _this_ had happened?

He was _livid_.

Another understatement…

He didn't even know it was possible for him to get this angry.

…

Actually, maybe he did.

 _Radditz_ , was the first thought that came to his mind.

 _That_ was probably the last time he had felt this angry…

He vaguely remembered that _fury_ he had felt before he blacked out.

It was back, and he was _close_.

He could _barely_ think straight.

It felt like he was clinging with all of his might to the last and _final_ , shred of his sanity.

He was at the edge.

…

The day had started out normally enough.

When he compared it to his days _recently_ , anyways…

Practicing with his Ki, taking in the sights of his surroundings with his new Ki technique…

Just his normal morning routine.

…

He had seen his host lean down and eat something.

It would occasionally do that, but it was usually a deer or another small animal. This time it dug into the dirt…

It continued digging around and eating for a while, when a cold feeling of dread wormed its way into his stomach.

He wasn't sure, but he had felt that his surroundings seemed familiar…

So, after it finished, he crawled out of the hole he had dug in the wall of its esophagus, and made his way down its throat, towards the stomach.

He had needed to make sure…

He had wanted to be wrong…

The journey down was simple. He had been up and down a few times during his stay.

He could levitate, which made climbing _very_ easy. And with his pseudo-telekinesis, granted to him by his energy compacting ability, he could open and close the things throat around him at will.

When he arrived in the stomach, he immediately locked onto the thing it had just eaten.

He hadn't been able to see it with his eyes due to the darkness, but he knew where it was, and when he felt it with his fingers, he knew that his hunch had been right.

It was a bag of dried deer meat.

 _His_ bag.

It was the food he had stockpiled in the woods so he could focus on his training.

This thing had just eaten it all.

His food was gone.

It had even destroyed all the tools he had made.

Everything he had left at his old 'home', this thing had just destroyed.

Which means that when he got out, he had to restart completely from scratch, _again_.

That was when _that_ feeling had showed up again.

He'd have to spend another week or so getting everything set up again.

Another _week_ taken off of his training time.

He was already so far behind. He felt physically weak. He'd probably have to spend a week or two just getting back to his _previous_ level.

Now he was _another_ week behind. Possibly even more. He had lucked out finding that herd of deer after all. Who knows if he'd find another one like that any time soon?

…

It was _wasting_ his time.

Decreasing the odds of his family's survival in a year.

This thing had tried to eat him, and now it just finished destroying everything that he had set up for himself.

The weirdest part of it all, was that he recognized that it wasn't even _that_ big of a loss. He knew, rationally, that there was no reason for him to be _this_ mad about it. Things would probably be easier this time around since he had survived out here for so long already.

And he _was_ keeping up with his Ki manipulation training despite his situation, so maybe he wasn't as far behind as he originally thought.

In some ways he was actually ahead…

…

His body _clearly_ didn't agree.

And to be fair, perhaps this had been building in him for a while.

This _rage_.

Being forced to live like this…

In this _filth_.

Even _now_ he could feel his power growing.

Perhaps this had simply been the last straw.

…

But it didn't make sense.

His power showed up when his dad was in danger.

It showed up _again_ when Piccolo threw him into that mountain.

Then it _didn't_ show up when he was nearly _starving_ to death.

It _didn't_ show up when he was nearly crushed to death. Or when he was nearly ripped apart.

Why was it showing up now?

In this insignificant by comparison, situation…

Where was the pattern?

Did it just show up randomly?

Was there even a pattern?

…

He could feel his consciousness slipping.

He could feel his higher brain functions begin to leave him. It was weird. Like a door closing in his mind.

…

He was going to black out again, wasn't he?

At _that_ moment, a final thought occurred to him.

His fear was fake. A product of his body's chemical imbalances.

…

Was this anger fake too?

He brought up the memory of taking that mental step back when he was facing the jaws of that dinosaur.

And he tried it _again_.

He took a step back.

…

And something _different_ happened.

He _didn't_ black out.

…

 _Total_ indifference.

 _All_ of his emotions were just _wiped_.

He wasn't angry anymore, he wasn't happy, or sad, or scared…

He didn't care about _anything_ at all.

Then he heard the _voice_.

"Kill them all."

It sounded like what he'd imagine a demon would sound like.

Dark, twisted, and _very_ angry.

He heard it clear as day.

From some deep, dark _pit_ , in his own mind…

It was a static-y voice that reverberated in the silence.

But he wasn't afraid of it.

He didn't feel anything.

He took one final cursory scan of the environment outside his host with his energy, and confirmed that _indeed_ , those seven other dinosaurs were nearby.

They had stuck together, all this time.

Convenient.

He reached into his Ki reserves…

And noticed that they were _much_ larger now.

…

The voice had sounded familiar.

Yet he couldn't remember a time where he had heard it before…

…

 _Then_ he lost control of his body.

It was like he was a computer, and the voice had just input a command.

He couldn't stop himself if he tried.

An aura of blue energy exploded around him, and he _blurred_ …

* * *

He had known the exact position of the dinosaur.

He knew where its limbs were, and how it was oriented.

So he chose a trajectory that would cause it the maximum amount of damage while missing all vital organs, keeping it alive for as long as possible.

It needed to _suffer_ before it died.

He blurred _up_ , and to the side, creating a tunnel the size of the things own esophagus, leading from its stomach, to a point on the back of its neck.

He was _outside_ now.

There was a shower of red, in _all_ directions.

Wasting no time, he caught himself in mid-air with his energy, and _pulled_.

He _barreled_ towards the group of grazing dinosaurs.

It was strange how Ki-based flight worked. It wasn't a pushing sensation off the ground, but a feeling more akin to grabbing your own body mentally, and pulling yourself towards your target.

He went through the closest one's _face_ , folding its skull inwards, and blowing the pieces of its snout and nose, out the back of its own head.

He felt himself launch towards the next one without pause, all the while noticing that he was losing more and more control.

The edges of his vision were fading.

It was like his field of vision was a television screen. And the pixels along the edges were rapidly powering off, one by one, creating a tunnel of light that just kept decreasing in diameter as time went on.

He hit the next one in the center of its back, burrowed inside, and felt himself flex his Ki in _all_ directions.

He blew it apart.

He felt the structural integrity of its body give out, and it _liquefied_.

He was able to watch, frame by frame, as the dinosaurs body turned into a slowly expanding sphere of red mist, that he was at the center of.

He was an emotionless spectator throughout _all_ of this.

He could almost imagine a meter now. Like a thermometer. Every time he tried to move his own body, it would fill slightly. Every time he would try to think about something, it again, would begin to fill.

And the closer it got to filling up completely, the closer and closer he got to blacking out, and losing all control.

His body didn't want him to interfere, it seemed.

And every time he tried, it would retaliate _violently_ , by ripping even more control away from him.

Which was unfortunate.

…

Because it was being so _inefficient_ with his energy.

Apart from that first maneuver where he had made his exit from his former host, his body was ignoring all of his commands.

It was just _rampaging_.

It could get so much more done with so much less energy if it just _listened_ to him.

He had learned a lot about dinosaur anatomy over the past few… weeks? Months?

How long had he been in there for?

…

He knew where the arteries were. All he needed was to slice them open, and they would die. It would take almost no energy to do so. He didn't need to be this _flashy_ , and over the top.

Such a waste of energy.

…

There was some distant part of him that was aware of the fact that not being efficient enough on his murdering spree probably shouldn't have been his main concern, but it was just background noise at this point.

Because right now, he didn't care.

If he could find a way to use this though, this power, and make it listen to him, he'd be ready for when the saiyans arrived.

He was sure.

…

It was incredible to watch.

His vision blurred again. Going from red mist, to the face of his body's next target.

It was pulp in the next instant.

Wait.

He should probably slow down. He could use these things as a food source. Maybe he wouldn't need to find another one then.

…

The meter was nearly full.

Gosh, his thoughts were so sluggish now.

Like wading through mud.

He was a _hair_ away from blacking out.

…

Another memory flashed before him…

Lucid dreaming…

He ran through the implications in his head.

…

It was brilliant.

When he was first learning how to lucid dream, he had run into a similar problem.

He could always gain control of the dream and become self-aware while it was playing out, but the moment he tried to change anything during it, it would just collapse and he would suddenly wake up.

It had been an annoying problem to try and solve. But there was a surprising parallel between that problem, and the one he was facing now.

In either case, if he tried to change anything, all remaining control would be ripped from him.

…

Maybe the solution was the same too.

Baby steps.

He had solved his dreaming problem by deliberately restraining himself from taking control at first. He just sat as a spectator, cleared his mind, and when the dream finished, he'd write about it in a notebook.

The goal was to improve his memory of his dreams as much as possible until he could remember all of them. And when it finally felt natural to be a conscious and thinking spectator while asleep, _then_ he shifted his focus onto control.

When his power took over and he blacked out all those times in the past, he wouldn't have any memory of the events that occurred while he was unconscious because he was trying to either resist it, or control it.

They were essentially the same situation.

He was trying to take on too much, too fast.

He couldn't see what was going on back then…

Well, he could now.

He should make it his goal to just make it to the end, and _remember_.

 _Then_ focus on trying to take control at some other occasion in the future…

…

So, he did.

He blanked his mind, and _backed_ _off_.

…

And the meter stopped filling.

…

He let his body do its thing.

And he watched…

* * *

He made it.

…

All of the dinosaurs were dead, his body had nothing left to kill, and he was still able to observe his surroundings.

Success.

He still had a serious case of tunnel vision though…

But, he _was_ slowly reeling in the _fury_ that he was swamped with.

He wasn't in immediate danger of blacking out anymore. His body was still putting up some resistance, but it wasn't anywhere close to the level it had been just a few minutes prior.

He could even feel his emotions begin to peek out of whatever hole they had sequestered themselves away into, now. They had left him in order to survive that _storm_ his body had just unleashed…

Things were going back to normal.

It was only a matter of time now.

He just had to ignore the raging voices in his head, and steadily continue to calm himself down.

He couldn't rush this.

Slow and steady.

He found himself seated, leaning his back against a tree, with his hands clenched around the sides of his head, covering his ears.

But on the _inside_ , it felt like he was at the bottom of a hill, with his arms tied behind his back, and his feet taped together, trying to squirm his way to the top like a worm.

It was a long and moderately annoying process, and he was struggling mightily, but he could do it.

It wasn't difficult, just time consuming.

…

There was red _everywhere_.

And chunks.

Lots of red, and lots of chunks.

There was even some in the trees.

His mom would be pretty upset if she saw what a mess he had made…

He could only imagine…

She _hated_ messes…

…

His thoughts were broken when the voices in his head started whispering again. They were getting louder and louder.

He sighed.

They were being so noisy. It wasn't doing his headache any favors…

Reluctantly, he tried to listen in…

…

"Please let him go," the voice said.

…

It was an astonishing level of clarity. Lately, the voices were just whispers that he couldn't really make out, but this was…

Oh.

…

It wasn't in his head.

He could hear footsteps now.

So he glanced up in the direction they were coming from.

He was in a small clearing in a forest, and the sounds were coming from the treeline on the other side maybe thirty meters away.

He had no idea what to expect when he got a look at the trio that emerged from the trees, but it certainly wasn't _this_.

His struggle to regain control of his emotions stopped _immediately_.

Inner Gohan's struggle to squirm up the hill was halted in an instant, as someone grabbed his metaphorical legs and dragged him right back down to the bottom, wiping out all of his progress.

He could _feel_ his emotions give off a small twinge of fear about how is body was going to react to this new situation, before they hid themselves away again.

The severed head that one of them was carrying around certainly roused his body's attention. And the apocalyptic anger that had receded earlier, was now watching this new situation in earnest, hoping for a chance to spring into action once more.

He was pretty irritated himself.

He had been _so_ close to re-gaining control of himself again.

So close.

He sighed.

…

And then his petty irritation was squashed.

Because _this_ was more important.

In an instant, his mind did what it did best and started trying to make sense of the situation at hand.

At first he thought they were more dinosaurs. But a closer look revealed that they were different. He couldn't identify the species, but they were large, giant in fact, and covered in brown fur.

Twelve to fifteen feet tall, by his estimation…

They were intelligent, based on their conversation.

 _Not_ mindless like that bird from earlier…

One was carrying a head.

A human head by the looks of it.

The victim had white hair and wrinkles, implying advanced age.

It was male.

The earlier voice had said: "Please let _him_ go," in a mocking way. It had sounded like an adult man trying to mimic the voice of a child.

…

For a moment, he tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. He _really_ did. But he could see literally _no_ possible way of looking at these events and concluding that these people were anything other than unforgivable, vile, reprehensible monsters.

 _Worse_ than Radditz.

A phrase he'd never thought he'd ever use, at _least_ until he finally met the other saiyans…

The first scenario that played out in his mind was a child begging these people to let this man live, and these people clearly _not_ doing that. Even being evil enough to make fun of the whole situation afterwards. Going as far as parading his severed head around when they were done.

The only _possible_ scenario he could come up with, in which these people were innocent, was if they were _horribly_ irresponsible _actors_ , carrying around a prop after a performance somewhere.

But that looked to be exceedingly unlikely.

So he listened further…

…

They started _laughing_.

"Did you hear that fucking dumb bitch?"

…

Fucking? Bitch?

It had been a while since he had heard words that he didn't understand. Were they names?

No.

An adjective and a noun based on the context…

…

"HOLY FUCK!"

One of them shouted.

The others froze.

…

 _That_ word again…

…

"What the hell happened here?"

He watched as the three giants started glancing around the clearing in surprise.

…

Initially, he was confused, until he remembered the vast quantities of dinosaur blood raining down from the trees around him.

Then there were the chunks of flesh strewn about in the vicinity.

…

Oh yeah.

 _He_ did that.

…

"Looks like there was some kinda brawl," one of them drawled lazily, as it poked at the remains of a dinosaur leg.

"A fucking brutal one."

A _fourth_ giant came out of the woods.

It _immediately_ locked eyes with Gohan and just _stared_.

…

The others continued their conversation, oblivious.

"What the hell kinda brawl ends with everyone in pieces like this? What the hell even are these things? They sure don't look like people." He glanced over to the fourth giant. "Hey new guy."

…

Number four just continued to stare at Gohan.

…

"You know what happened here?"

He was met with silence.

"New guy?"

Number four was broken out of his thoughts and looked at his friend.

…

Then he looked back at Gohan.

…

"Oh _hell_ no." Then he started backing away. "Nope. Nuh-uh. Not happening."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I understood it, you know?" The fourth continued. "Why we did what we did to that brat. _That_ made sense. I was against it, but it made sense. We had a mission. I _understood_ it…"

He continued backing away, terrified. "But _this_... I kept telling you, but you didn't listen. None of you did. This forest is _fucked_."

The other three just watched in confusion.

"Oh not this again."

"Why the hell did the boss even hire you? Fucking coward…"

Number four looked at his fellow giant sharply. "Look around you! It's the middle of the fucking night! There isn't anything around for fucking miles! Yet somehow, we stumble onto a fucking massacre in the middle of a creepy ass forest. The blood is still wet. It's _recent_. As in fucking _minutes_ old. The last living things that were here are splattered on the ground around you."

Then number four pointed at Gohan, finger shaking.

…

"The last _living_ things…"

The other three looked to where he was pointing.

…

They found a kid sitting against a tree on the other end of the clearing with his knees tucked into his chest. He was faintly _glowing_ with an ethereal light, he was shirtless, and _soaked_ in blood. His long, filthy, and unkempt hair was covering his eyes completely, and went passed his shoulders. His head was cocked in their direction. Just watching them.

A long red streak was plastered on the ground leading from the middle of the clearing, directly towards him. Ending at his feet.

Pointing at him like an arrow.

Various body parts were hanging in the trees around him, still dripping red.

…

"Oh, would you look at that." One of the giants grinned viciously at him.

"What's a kid doing all the way out here?"

"I think the better question is: what sort of creepy ass kid sits alone in a forest at night, miles from the closest town, and just fucking _waits_?"

"It doesn't matter. We lucked out. That bitch won't crack. Grab the kid, and we'll gut him in front her just like that old man if she still doesn't fucking _talk_."

The three of them brandished various weapons and started advancing towards him.

"I hope it fucking _works_ this time. Her stubborn streak is fucking _aggravating_. I hope to god I fucking get that promotion for this bullshit…"

"Fucking kid..."

"You are _all_ fucking morons." Number four then spun on a heel and started running back into the forest. "I'm out."

…

…

That was enough of that.

Clearly not actors, not that he realistic thought that they were in the first place…

And from what he could tell, they kidnapped a girl, and killed a man in front of her for some reason.

…

Maybe bitch was a synonym…

…

He didn't even really care if they intended to do the same to him now.

Maybe he would have, if they had caught him on a different day…

Now his rage was back, and he was at the edge again.

He was a hair away from blacking out, but his body still hadn't moved yet.

Still, he wanted this emotional roller-coaster to end. Killing dinosaurs was one thing, but if he let his body go now, wound up as it was, he knew _exactly_ what was going to happen.

He wanted to be in control again.

So he shakily stood up to his feet and gave them a _single_ chance…

"Turn around… walk away… now…"

His voice was quiet and raspy, from not using it for so long. So much so, that he almost didn't even recognize it as his.

…

Number four was _long_ gone

The other three _laughed_.

…

He didn't just tip over the metaphorical edge, he was fired from a cannon, off the mountain and clean into the next district.

His vision went _red_ , and for a brief moment, he lost control.

 _Three moves_ …

…

 _Then_ he managed to catch himself.

There was something in his hand now, and he had driven whatever it was into one of the giants' necks.

He had _tunnel_ vision again, and he was only able to _observe_ what his body was doing.

…

He glanced behind him. He was curious about the object in his hand and where he had gotten it.

He stared with detached curiosity at the mangled form of one of the giants.

It was in the process of lifelessly collapsing to the ground.

…

It was happening in slow motion.

Its neck reminded him of a candy cane.

The giant was standing straight up, but the top of his head was pointed _down_ , leaving a very noticeable and extreme, 180 degree curve, in its spinal cord.

In particular, the vertebrae in the neck.

 _That_ was an internal decapitation. Had to be. There was _no_ way its spine could remain in one piece after that.

And _that_ , amazingly enough, wasn't even the worst injury it had sustained.

Evidently, his body had wanted a sharp implement to use as a weapon.

So to solve the problem, it had decided to guide his hand through the giant's newly exposed, upside down _chin_ , and ripped out a large section of the jaw bone.

Half of the giants face was now missing.

And his body had taken that jaw bone and used it to sever the _next_ giant's jugular.

Glancing back to the giant his body was currently _stabbing_ , he watched as its face transformed from amused, to horror and pain, as its blood started spraying everywhere.

…

Needless to say, they weren't laughing anymore.

The next one was looking at him in horror.

He felt himself kick off the lifeless corpse he was just standing on, and begin to walk towards it.

He could hear himself speaking now.

"Wrong day."

…

"You picked the _wrong_ day…"

Then he _blurred_.

…

The final giant leaped to the side and shouted.

"OH FUCK!"

…

…

…

 _'Ho phuck?'_

…

Blood sprayed the air…

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**


	15. Chapter 15: Mass Relocation

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: So my computer broke. Lost this whole chapter as a result. That was about a month ago. Couldn't really get myself to rewrite it until recently. So yeah. That was fun. I'm backing up everything from now on, that's for sure.**

 **As was pointed out in the comments, this story is a bit of a mess in its direction, formatting, etc.**

 **I'm aware of this, and have been for a while. As you may be able to tell if you look at previous chapters when compared to this one, the overall style seems to change over time in strange ways, and there are weird tangents and unnecessarily long explanations for things.**

 **It's a mess, and that inconsistency between chapters is definitely the thing I struggle with the most when I'm writing. These long breaks between updates certainly don't help at all, either. I find myself sometimes, reading my previous chapters and having a laugh at just how ridiculous they can be at times. I honestly have no idea what was going through my head during some of it, due to the months of hiatus between some of the chapters. And I'm sure I'll think that again in the future about this one, too.**

 **I like to think of that as me getting incrementally better, but I can't really be sure. Who knows? Maybe I'm getting worse.**

 **I've always considered this story to be a bit of an experiment.**

 **I had the whole plot planned right from the start. All the way to how I want the Cell Games to go and beyond. Even if I never actually advance the story that far, the plot is planned out essentially in full, right now. I have like 20 pages of notes written up.**

 **Despite the weird directions I've been taking, nothing has actually changed much plot-wise from that original plan. Everything that's happened so far is not only important for future events, but critical in how I want this Gohan to turn out.**

 **But when I first started writing this, I had never written a story before. I knew I had to be an average writer at best at the time, and garbage at worst.**

 **But I figured I'd give it a try anyways. I wanted to improve. I still do. And I'm still trying to find a writing style that really feels comfortable almost 2 years later. And to be blunt, it's still a work in progress.**

 **So if you see any abrupt shifts in the way I'm doing things, it's probably because I'm trying out something new, and using this story as a testing ground for it.**

 **I don't intend to stop writing anytime soon either, despite the impression that these long breaks between updates gives off.**

 **And, for transparency sake, for any potential readers who are still with me, and have made it this far, here's the current plan going forward:**

 **3 more chapters, and then on the fourth, is the saiyans. All of the pre-saiyan stuff just needs to be wrapped up, before I intend to start doing time skips. I'm still looking at my old chapters as well, and I'll eventually get to re-editing them.**

 **-** **LeviTamm**

* * *

Sometimes, he wondered what things would be like if his life were like a television program. Where someone could tune in, and see what he was up to whenever they felt like it. And sometimes, when he did wonder that, he would always entertain the thought of what any hypothetical spectators would think of him if they began watching him at _that_ exact instant. Having missed the circumstances that led up to the present…

He was calmly walking through the forest.

In his left hand was the jaw bone from a giant… _something_. He still had no idea what species it was from. A sentient bear of some sort maybe…

In his right, he was carrying a severed human head.

He also had no shirt on. His homemade one had disintegrated long ago, and his homemade pants had countless holes in them.

He was covered head to toe in blood, and dried mucous.

None of which belonged to him.

Needless to say he was pretty uncomfortable with the current situation.

...

What would someone watching him think?

He had been walking for a while, and it had given him a lot of time to go over everything that had just occurred.

He had reclaimed control over his emotions, and his body's anger had finally receded.

 _He_ was in control again.

But he almost wished that he wasn't.

It was getting harder and harder to continue forward.

He had just killed what amounted to two people. Nearly a third as well. They were evil sure, but he was second guessing himself now. _Why_ did he even kill them? That fourth one had been surprisingly afraid of him for some reason, and had run off somewhere. Was it even necessary? Maybe he could have just scared them a little…

…

He was regretting it.

He had this feeling in his chest now. It was _very_ similar to the feeling where you just remembered that you needed to do something extremely important, and forgotten all about it until _that_ exact moment. And now it was too late, and there would be serious consequences.

Only, the feeling was _worse_ than that.

It was this heart sinking _tug_ that just got worse with every step.

He hadn't felt this way at _all_ after he had killed Radditz.

He hadn't felt anything when he did that.

Was it because he couldn't remember that moment very clearly?

…

When his body was in control, it had spared that third giant of the group after finally- _finally_ , listening to one of his suggestions.

At the last instant, after the giant had shouted those words at him- words that he _still_ didn't understand, he had managed to regain enough control over his body to divert his hand, giving the giant a deep _slash_ rather than a fatal wound.

It hadn't been an act of mercy. His mind had simply come up with a plan, and the plan required the last giant to be alive.

The giants had _repeatedly_ referred to a boss of some kind during their conversation. And they had said that there was nothing around for miles. So he had concluded that the giants were from some kind of camp, or base somewhere nearby.

And there was an opportunity there.

He was tired. Tired and frustrated. He didn't want to have to restart _all_ over again. He wanted out. Out of this infuriating forest, and into a town of some kind.

He would find a way to get some money, get a capsule house, enough provisions so that he wouldn't have to worry about gathering food anymore, and maybe even some training gear.

Then he'd come _back_ out here again and train until Piccolo showed up, if he ever did.

He was still working on how he'd get the money, but he'd worry about that when he got to a town.

Keeping the last giant alive had been a logical decision at the time, but now that his emotions were back, he was kind of grateful that he had spared at least one of them.

He had certainly threatened him though.

Basically said he'd finish the job if his new prisoner didn't guide him back to wherever it was that he came from.

Looking back, he was surprised that he had managed to pull that off. He had never really threatened someone before. Didn't think he had it in him. Now that his emotions had come back, he probably wouldn't be able to again, either.

It was kind of scary when his body just took over like that. It wouldn't care about anything one moment, then it would go on a rampage in the next.

Then it would thrust _him-_ the shy, antisocial, introverted four and a half year old back in control to deal with the consequences.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Now the giant was walking ahead of him, in rigid terror. Oblivious of the fact that as he was now, he wasn't sure if he could actually carry out any of his threats anymore.

They hadn't said a word to each other since then, either.

Though the giant _would_ occasionally glance back at him. Then they'd lock eyes, and then the giant would turn away again and keep walking.

…

He had taken the head back there too.

He _still_ wasn't sure if that was the right decision either.

If he hadn't, it would just sit out there and decay, but now that he had, he was stuck- _you know_ , carrying around someone's severed head.

His original thought had been that it might be a good idea to complete the man's body so that it could be given a proper burial and whoever it was could finally rest in peace, but he had no idea if it was the right thing to do at all.

It was _awkward_.

And not the type of awkward that he could look back at, in hindsight, and find entertaining. It was closer to the type of awkward that he wasn't ever going to tell anyone about under any circumstances _ever_ , for the rest of his life.

And he hoped that nobody saw him in the meantime.

Because, just as _he_ had made assumptions about the _giants_ , for carrying a severed head around, so too would a spectator who spotted him, carrying it around himself.

Maybe he should have just left it back there.

But if he had, he was pretty sure he'd be thinking about it for the rest of his life. Wondering if he had made the right call…

Imagining it decaying in some unknown forest...

Maybe he should have made the _giant_ carry it.

…

He had no idea what he should have done.

…

* * *

The sun was starting to come up now.

The sky just above the treeline was beginning to turn that familiar shade of orange that was always present just before sunrise.

…

And he was beginning to get mentally _fatigued_.

His _muscles_ were totally relaxed.

He was moving his body _solely_ through the use of Ki manipulation because he wouldn't be able to move it around otherwise, broken as it was.

It took a _lot_ of concentration.

His body had sustained a lot of damage, and he was still getting used to moving around that way.

…

He should probably visit a hospital when he got to a town.

But how would _that_ work out?

They were usually pretty thorough with how they dealt with patients. There would be an identity check, and he probably wouldn't be able to get away with a false name. It wouldn't be on any list. He'd probably be labelled an orphan and child protective services or whatever agency handled lost children would be all over him.

He'd be put in a home somewhere.

He'd promptly break out and escape obviously, but then he'd be considered a missing person, and his picture would be sent out to the public. Then his _mom_ would see it at some point…

She _did_ watch the news every now and then…

But he couldn't give his real name either right? He had no idea if his family was well known. His mom had family ties to Ox King, so if the Son family was well known he wasn't sure if it was a good thing. A lot of people were still deathly afraid of Ox King because he hadn't always been friendly and fun loving the way he was now.

There were some people who still referred to him as "The Emperor of Demons" even after all these years…

And then there was his _mom_ …

If _she_ found out that her kidnapped son had stumbled into a hospital in some random town somewhere, a lot of things would happen in short succession.

And she _would_ find out if he gave his real name.

Hospitals were obligated to phone the relatives of patients under their care.

It was both morally, and legally, the right thing to do.

From _their_ perspective.

They certainly wouldn't listen to some kid babbling about a coming alien invasion, begging them to not call his mom because the world could potentially end if they did...

And he'd bet that his mom could cover the distance from their home in Mt. Paozu, to _any_ given hospital on the planet in just a few _hours_ , after receiving that kind of information. She was terrifyingly overprotective of him like that…

And as much as he wanted to go back home, doing so would lower the odds of victory over the saiyans.

And _that_ was really all he could afford to care about right now.

He wasn't a fighter who would go and challenge them to an honourable fight when they got here. All he was concerned about, was victory at any cost. He'd do every last thing that he could think of, to stack the odds in his favor.

 _Raise_ the odds of _his_ success, and _lower_ the odds of _their_ victory.

Because _really_ , he just wanted to get on with his life.

He'd do whatever it took to win.

And that meant that he needed to gain control over his hidden power, and train until he was strong enough to fight.

His mom would probably ground him for _years_ , if she saw him now. Which meant no training, and certainly no fighting either.

She wouldn't see that she would be potentially shooting his dad and his dad's friends in the foot by holding him back like that.

He needed to be there.

 _They_ needed him to be there.

But only if he was strong enough.

There was a threshold after all…

If he was too weak, there was a chance he'd be taken hostage again, or otherwise get in the way of the others, and he'd actually end up _hurting_ their odds by being there.

He needed to be either strong enough, or have some sort of valuable ability when he got there.

He needed to-

…

 _Click._

…

He stiffened.

A sound.

It had been barely audible, but he heard it.

He had been watching the giant carefully for a while now, but other than acting deathly afraid of him, the giant hadn't done anything suspicious.

He was just casually walking with his hands in his pockets.

…

He glanced at the giant's left hand. It was buried in one of the massive pockets sewn into the sides of its dark blue pants.

Was there something in the giant's pocket? Its hand had been in there the whole time.

He was _pretty_ sure that the sound had originated from there…

"We-we're almost there," the giant stuttered, breaking the silence for the first time. "It's just up ahead. About ten minutes."

The giant kept walking without looking back.

Gohan didn't answer. He was starting to get worried. He had a _bad_ feeling about this now…

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea. His resolve was _really_ weakening. And his hidden power wasn't at the surface anymore. If something happened now, he would be on his own…

He tried calming himself down. He should be fine as long as he didn't run out of energy.

Surprisingly, he still had a good amount left.

When his body had taken over earlier, it was like it had a different well of energy to draw from. Now that he was in control himself, his _old_ reserve of energy was back.

If a fight broke out, he should be alright.

This giant wasn't very strong after all…

* * *

The giant led him into a deserted camp of some sort.

There were capsule buildings everywhere. Arranged in a ring around a bunch of giant yellow machines of some sort. They looked like some kind of excavators. Excavators or drills maybe. There was a pretty big hole in the ground too.

Like, a _really_ big hole.

Some kind of mining operation maybe?

Why were they digging such a big hole in the ground?

There was nobody in sight either.

It was like the whole place had been abandoned.

There were also a line of non-descript empty vehicles. They had no symbols of any kind on them. Just plain green trucks, and there had to be twenty of them, at least.

…

About _two_ hundred meters.

If he drew a circle of that diameter, it would be about the size of this clearing. The forest itself continued on past its edge.

…

He had nothing.

This whole situation made _no_ sense at all.

Was this their base?

Why would a bunch of giants- _murdering_ giants, be digging a hole in the middle of nowhere?

What about the person they kidnapped? How did _they_ fit into this?

Where _was_ everyone?

…

The _click_.

His mind scrambled, and his eyes narrowed.

…

And he surprised himself yet again with how fast he came up with a solution.

He stopped walking immediately.

…

The giant took a few more steps before noticing, and then he turned around to face him.

The giant looked hesitant. The fear was _very_ prominent on his face.

He looked like he was about to say something, but Gohan beat him to the punch.

They were the first words that he said to the giant since killing the other two, about an hour ago.

"If I get attacked, I'm going to make sure that _you're_ the first person to die here."

On the inside however, he was _terrified_.

He had guessed that the giant had some kind of communicator, and his instincts had started _screaming_ at him that this was some kind of trap.

So he had extended his senses outwards, using his new ability, and his stomach had dropped.

In the trees around him, hiding out of sight, were a lot of _things_ of all shapes and sizes.

He had originally thought animals, but no. They were being quiet, and making an effort to _hide_.

People.

Lots of people.

People of all shapes, sizes, and species, were hiding in the trees and _waiting_.

He had discarded a few ideas immediately. Retreat wouldn't really work, he could sense that a few of the people had moved into the trees behind him already.

He was cut off on all directions except for one.

His flight was untested though. Would he be able to get away?

He had been about to try, until his mind had brought up the idea of _guns_.

His _body_ was fast when _it_ was in control. But could it outmaneuver bullets?

He wouldn't be able to himself either. He hadn't practiced enough. Just some basic levitation back when he was in that dinosaur.

He couldn't escape this so easily.

So he had come to the conclusion that a fight would likely break out here unless he could somehow stop it.

So he had put up a façade, and threatened the giant again.

Flight was a pretty rare ability from his understanding, so they wouldn't expect some kid to be capable of it. That's why he wanted to keep it hidden. He had a lot of cards and abilities that were _very_ dangerous when they were revealed suddenly, and out of nowhere. That surprise factor was his back-up plan.

But maybe he could avoid a fight altogether.

He really hoped that the fear he was feeling wasn't evident in his expression.

If he scared this giant badly enough, he might be able to get out of this without a fight.

…

' _Take the bait_ please…'

It seemed to work. At least initially. His words had had a _very_ clear effect on the giant.

Wide eyes, and a mouth hanging open in shock, at his sudden threat.

That was when he felt people casually approaching him from behind, and a bunch of others stepped out from the treeline.

They were no longer making an effort to hide.

…

He couldn't count them all.

Forty? _Sixty_ maybe?

They were closing in on him from all sides, and they _definitely_ had guns.

Then he heard an uproarious laugh. "Are you fucking _kidding_ me?"

Gohan turned to look at the speaker, and his jaw dropped.

He was _huge_.

Some type of dinosaur, _thing_. It had wings and everything, and it could _talk_.

 _Much_ bigger than the giants he had killed earlier.

He felt his mind go into overdrive as he frantically scanned his surroundings.

Giants, dinosaur type… _things_ , of all colours, and a lot of people carrying a lot of guns.

He was at the center of attention.

…

He _hated_ when that happened.

He had never been able to just act _normal_ around other people when he was at the center of everything like that.

…

"You activated the silent alarm over _this_?"

He could hear various complaints and sounds of disbelief all throughout his surroundings.

 _Brat_. _Kid_. _Looks dead on his feet_. And all other types of expressions were being thrown around.

Then the giant he had threatened responded to the criticism, _outraged_.

"Wha- This kid isn't _normal_! He killed my whole _team_!"

The big one laughed even harder. "And how the hell did they manage to get killed by this runt? Did you guys get wasted again?"

A different voice came from his left.

"God dammit Sid. I thought the general had somehow found us, and was on his way here. You scared the shit out of us."

…

They were talking about _generals_ now?

What sort of situation had he stumbled into here?

Glancing to his right, Gohan immediately noticed someone that didn't seem to belong.

A girl.

A good few years older than him at least. Teenager maybe? She had black hair, tattered clothes, and was _heavily_ bruised.

The one on her right cheek was painful to even look at. It covered that entire side of her face.

She also appeared to be restrained, and she had guards on either side of her with guns.

And she was crying. Or _had_ been anyways…

She appeared to be trying to hold back the tears, but couldn't quite manage it.

…

He knew exactly what _that_ was like.

His mind briefly brought up the memory of the time he had spent trapped in his uncle's spaceship, totally helpless and afraid…

Yeah, he knew.

…

She just had this air of hopelessness and despair clinging to her like a wet cloak.

This was probably the girl those giants had been talking about.

…

But… why?

Just, why?

What was the point of all of this?

…

"You there." The big one who seemed to be the one in charge abruptly pointed to one of the normal humans carrying a gun.

"Yes sir."

"Shoot this runt in the leg and knock him out. I'm curious to see how many people this bitch will let die in front of her before she cracks."

"Yes sir."

Gohan watched in disbelief as the guard raised his rifle at him, and took aim.

He took one last glance at the girl, before facing the barrel of the gun.

It happened in slow motion.

As the gun rose, a feeling like a tightening spring welled up inside him.

If _ever_ he needed his mind to be on its A-game, it was now.

There was no time to plan. There were just too many people. He'd have to figure it out as he went.

He had the element of surprise though.

He took a final deep breath and exhaled.

…

And then his mind did what it did best.

…

He was nervous.

Anxious.

And there was this underlying feeling that he couldn't quite identify. It was almost… excitement?

No, not quite.

It was more of a feeling where, he knew he was being severely underestimated, and the moment he made a move, all of their preconceptions about him would shatter in an instant.

It was almost a sort of anticipated satisfaction.

Things were _not_ about to play out the way these people thought they would.

Not even _close_.

Things would change _fast_.

The guard pulled the trigger.

Gohan had predicted where the bullet would go by watching the gun barrel, estimating its angle, and waiting for the man's trigger finger to twitch.

He didn't think he could dodge a bullet that was already in the air, and he didn't know a whole lot about guns besides the basics.

Bullets were launched by rapidly expanding gas, and they followed parabolic trajectories when they came out of a gun. It was a common element in the physics problems he used to do in his textbooks back at home.

And the trigger needed to be _pulled_ before the bullet would come out. So instead of looking for the bullet while it was in the air, he opted to stay out of the path of the gun barrel entirely, and keep his eye and senses on the trigger finger.

An invisible dome of Ki had covered the entire area giving him his three hundred and sixty degree _pseudo_ -vision.

He had spent so much time practicing the technique back in that dinosaur, that he could see with it almost as well as he could with his normal vision.

But he hadn't really practiced combining it with his normal vision yet, because he had been in a pitch black environment when he had invented it. His eyes had been useless, and as a result, his sensing technique had been a complete _substitute_ , rather than an augmentation.

He couldn't see with both his eyes _and_ his energy at the same time as a result yet, so he opted to just use his Ki.

He'd sacrifice a small bit of clarity, for the expanded field of view.

He closed his eyes, and dodged to the left the instant the man's trigger finger twitched.

The bullet whizzed past him, _far_ faster than his senses could detect.

It was just a blur cutting through the air.

It had felt like a super long spear, or even a laser due to the sheer speed of it, rather than the tiny pellet that it actually was.

But it had _missed_.

In _that_ instant, _three_ options opened up to him. Take out the giant that brought him here in the first place just like he promised he would, take out the guard shooting at him, or take out the big one behind him- _the_ _leader_.

Once everyone here realized that he was a _lot_ stronger than he appeared, they would likely all decide to attack him at once. By then, if he could get the biggest threats taken care of, he might just make it out of this alive.

He needed to inflict as much damage as possible, as fast as possible.

So…

Leader, gunman, or giant?

…

Leader it is.

Everyone would probably wait for _his_ instruction if he was conscious, so he needed to remove him from the equation to cause as much confusion as possible.

The tightened spring feeling inside him released, and he _sprang_ into action, launching himself at the big dinosaur creature behind him.

The leader wasn't even paying attention when he was kicked in the face.

Gohan felt something shatter under the weight of his kick, and the leader was launched off his feet and fired backwards into the crowd behind.

The _instant_ Gohan landed on his feet, he felt the gunman that had shot originally prepare to start shooting again.

He could _feel_ everyone in the area jolt in obvious surprise.

…

They were _slow_ , he realized.

These people were _ordinary_.

 _Nobody_ reacted with superhuman reflexes of any kind, so he didn't have to worry about other Ki users by the looks of things.

According to his books, the average human reaction time was reported to be about a half second. That was so _slow_ when compared to his own. It would take a little longer for them to get their guns ready, so for a brief interval of time, the only threat was the gunman who already had his gun facing in his general direction.

It was really only _now_ that he could see how far he had come since he had started his training.

Everything was happening in slow motion relative to him, once again.

It was a familiar feeling. Like stepping into a different timeframe.

His thoughts and reaction speed were so ridiculously fast in comparison to these people.

It was something he hadn't anticipated, and came as a bit of a shock.

He spun around, and dodged to the _right_ this time, _just_ as the next wave of bullets started to fly.

The gun could fire rapidly, but it should have a limited clip size.

Based on his previous observations as well, the guns seemed to be standard amongst everyone here. They all looked the same apart from just a few.

Perhaps they had the same clip size as well.

He needed to count the bullets.

…

 _Five_ so far.

He continued to the right, staying just _slightly_ ahead of the strafing gunfire.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

He felt three or four people in that direction dive to the ground to prevent being shot by their own teammate.

Guns were being raised all around him now.

So slow…

He needed to follow an unpredictable path.

A simple zigzag wouldn't do.

These people were ordinary. He could zigzag faster than they could react. So he'd end up jumping to the side, then jumping back and getting hit by a bullet he was supposed to dodge, because they were too slow to follow his movements with their guns.

He needed to alter his speed. Acceleration and deceleration in _all_ directions. Constant speed was predictable, even to someone who couldn't match it themselves.

He dove to the ground, and launched himself into the air.

He constantly changed his direction of travel, and even ran a tight circle in place.

He needed to wait for his moment of opportunity.

No other gun was pointed at him just yet, but the crowd was scrambling to get them up, now.

If it could just stay that way for a few more moments.

He jumped to the left, did a quick zigzag, and then his moment arrived.

There was a _click_ , and the gun stopped firing.

Thirty-nine bullets in a clip?

That seemed like a weird number.

Did he miscount?

The gunman jettisoned his magazine, and it slowly began its descent to the ground.

A scenario flashed before him in his mind.

What if _he_ were the guy in charge of making these guns?

…

He would probably set up a double blind.

He'd make a range on each magazine between two values. Say, fifteen to thirty, for example. Then a random number of bullets within that range would be placed inside each magazine to prevent someone from accurately deducing the number of bullets that could be fired before having to reload.

Not even the gunman would know how many were in each magazine, if that were the case.

Maybe _they_ did that.

Was it a common practice in the military? How about in gangs?

He wasn't sure what these people were…

…

Maybe he was overthinking things again.

The gunman began reaching for his next clip.

He probably _was_ overthinking it.

That would only be an effective strategy against people who could move like _he_ could.

People who could actively count and dodge bullets as they were being fired, in real time.

Ordinary people couldn't do that, and guns were meant to be used against them.

…

So, he'd move forward open to that possibility, but it probably wouldn't actually be in use here.

He might have counted a ricochet or two by mistake.

Or maybe thirty-nine was just a standard number of bullets in a magazine.

He launched himself forward at a relatively slow speed towards the gunman.

Still no other guns were trained on him, though there were a few getting close.

He watched carefully as the gunman attatched the next magazine, and pulled some sort of latch on the side of the gun.

As the gunman slowly raised his gun again, Gohan sped forward at roughly one quarter of his full speed.

He covered the remaining twenty or so meters almost instantly.

He was already inside the gunman's guard before he could even wrap his finger all the way around the trigger.

He was a little bit surprised though. Surprised and confused.

This guy had spoken totally monotonously when he took those orders originally. He hadn't seen even a hint of surprise on the gunman's face this whole time. He was just blankly staring ahead like some sort of robot.

…

But the gun was now fully loaded and ready, and _that_ was the moment he had been waiting for.

He was going to take it for himself and use it. He'd have as many as thirty nine bullets to use if he did.

He didn't know how to load a gun properly, so he had waited for one to be loaded for him. Shooting it seemed simple enough now that he had seen how, and it was loaded now and ready to go. Just point and shoot.

For an instant, Gohan and the gunman locked eyes.

Emotionless blue met Gohan's determined black.

What was with this guy?

Gohan punched forward with his right arm, aiming for the gunman's face.

"Fuck."

The word was spoken calmly and articulately, without any emotion or inflection at all.

Then there was a _crack_ , as the man's face caved in.

Gohan wasted no time in reaching for the falling weapon.

Pull the trigger, point and shoot.

…

Maybe not in that order.

He was reaching with his left hand. The one holding the severed head that he probably should have _dropped_ earlier.

So he let go of it, and _stuck_ it to his forearm using his Ki compaction ability, freeing his hand.

His hand wrapped around the handle of the gun.

…

It was only _then_ that his current plan really registered in his mind.

What was he about to try to do? Shoot all these people?

He was a little surprised at himself for how easily he had enacted this plan. There had been no hesitation about shooting and possibly killing everyone here until this moment.

The _other_ him, his _body_ , was supposed to be the careless one, not him. His body was supposed to be the one with no reservations in killing, not him.

And his body wasn't in control.

So what was he about to do now?

As his hand finished wrapping around the falling gun, he spun around and pointed it at the group behind him.

He was met with a wall of sound.

It was overwhelming.

"DROP THE FUCKING GUN RIGHT NOW!"

"DROP IT NOW!"

"GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!"

A wall of guns were pointing at him now. Dozens of them from all directions.

It was such a shock that he felt his insides freeze up, and his eyes widen.

They hadn't shot yet however.

Why?

Whatever the reason, they were _definitely_ taking him seriously now.

The sudden chaos of shouts, and the wall of guns totally destroyed his concentration.

What now?

Everything quietened down from his perspective, and it felt like he was listening with his head underwater.

They were shouting still, but he couldn't really make out what they were saying anymore.

They were pointing their guns at him, and he had his pointed right back.

The shouting continued to drone on and on.

He wasn't really paying attention to it anymore.

He couldn't.

His headache was starting to come back, _strong_.

A pressure was starting to build up behind his forehead.

Opening his eyes to the storm of chaos, he glanced towards the girl again.

She was staring back at him with a strange look on her face.

Surprise, and was that… admiration?

Or was it hope?

It reminded him of the way he used to look at his dad, back in the days when he seemed like an infallible character.

Someone incapable of making mistakes.

…

Click.

…

Another _click_. One that barely registered underneath the cacophony of noise. This time from behind him.

Sparing a moment, he focused his senses behind him without turning around.

It was that _gunman_ again.

He was still conscious somehow, and had pulled out another _smaller_ gun out while lying in the dirt on his back.

And the gun was now pointed at his back, ready to fire.

He was still facing towards the girl.

' _Hey_ …'

A sudden thought occurred to him.

Maybe he could save her somehow.

Wouldn't _that_ be something?

…

His headache was getting worse.

He brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose, and he pinched the nerve endings there, in the hopes of alleviating the pain.

This really was the wrong day.

He could _feel_ the shouting now. That's how loud it sounded to him. It was just echoing in his head.

It was shaking his bones.

Flashes of memories flickered in his vision.

The giants, that dinosaur, and then Radditz' face.

And then all the sound just cut out.

…

Today…

He was done with it.

Something just _snapped_ in his mind.

Lashing out with his tail, he slapped the gun out of the gunman's hand behind him and then he started shooting.

The first time he pulled the trigger, three bullets came out, and the recoil threw off his aim.

He was trying to shoot the bullets individually to not waste them, since he didn't know how to reload.

But he had a feel for it now…

Flooding the gun with his energy, he locked it in place to prevent it from jumping up.

The gunman he had stolen it from had been using two hands to hold it earlier. With his Ki masking the recoil, he only needed to use one.

They tried shooting back.

With his senses, he was able to see who was going to pull the trigger first, so he could tell which direction to dodge in.

…

He had come to the conclusion that he wasn't skilled enough to deal with this situation properly.

He wasn't a good enough fighter to keep these people alive.

He wanted to incapacitate them. He really did. He even tried to with that first gunman. But it didn't work. He just tried shooting him again when he had his back turned.

Killing them would be _so_ much easier.

…

These people knew the risks.

They had chosen to live their lives in this profession, and had to have known that it was risky to do so. Their lives were on the line, and as far as he could tell, these people weren't the good guys.

Kidnappers and murderers.

They would get no sympathy from him any longer.

He had seen enough blood and killed enough animals in the past few months that he was really starting to get desensitized to this sort of thing now.

It probably wasn't a good thing for someone his age, but that's how it was.

…

Slow.

They were _so_ slow.

 _Way_ too slow.

He was firing individual shots from his newly acquired gun now, targeting and prioritizing the people in front of him that looked to be the _closest_ to pulling the trigger on _their_ weapon.

His eyes were closed, yet he could see _everything_ in the clearing around him with his senses.

His aim was perfect, now.

He barely even needed to dodge anymore.

They were falling to the ground before they could fire back.

He could aim faster than they could.

He could dodge faster than they could.

This wasn't even a battle anymore.

After getting used to the weapon, he was able to shoot a target in front of him, reposition the weapon a full one hundred and eighty degrees behind him, and shoot another target, in the time it took the gun to cycle _once_.

In other words, he could press and hold the trigger down, without releasing it, firing continuously, and each bullet would _still_ hit a _different_ target.

So he spun, around and around, blurring out of focus, firing in seemingly random directions.

And the people around him fell by the _dozens_.

Apart from his first mistake of missing the first three shots, he had only missed _one_ other time before his gun ran out of bullets, and started clicking.

Aiming was so _easy_ when the gun didn't jump, and he could see in all directions.

And these people couldn't dodge like he could.

There wasn't even anything to hide behind.

It had taken about five seconds for the gun in his hand to empty.

In that time, he had fired his first bullet, learned how to aim a gun, mastered the skill, and _halved_ the population of the clearing around him.

The gun clicked three times before he finally registered it being empty.

Only thirty five shots in that clip by his count.

Oddly enough, only the humans had been carrying guns. All of the bigger species were carrying either bladed weapons, or seemed to be unarmed.

Since he had _only_ targeted people carrying guns, only six humans were left in the clearing now, by his count. Only six guns were left.

"KILL THE BITCH NOW!" Somebody shouted, pointing at the girl.

Gohan immediately threw his now empty weapon in the direction of the shout, _hard_.

From what he had gathered so far, bitch seemed to be another word for girl.

The intonation of it however, felt almost derogatory. Like it wasn't a very nice thing to say.

But whatever it meant, he got the message. And he would rather they didn't try and kill whoever that girl was.

He leapt into the air and did a no-handed cartwheel.

He heard the _slap_ of his thrown, empty weapon striking his previous target the instant he reached his maximum height. At the moment of inversion.

He had run out of bullets so he needed more.

So he picked up the smaller gun, the one that he had previously knocked out of the first gunman's hand with his tail, while he was still upside down, and then he aimed it when he finished the rotation, and returned to a standing position.

"THE GENERAL HAD TO HAVE HIRED THIS KID TO SAVE HER! SHOOT HER NOW! WE CAN'T LET HER LIVE!"

Gohan pointed his new weapon at the first person to raise a gun after that order and pulled the trigger.

This gun was clearly different though. It only fired one time, even though he was holding the trigger down like last time.

It only took a moment for him to figure out that this type of gun needed to have its trigger pulled repeatedly, to keep shooting.

Six shots later, there were no more humans in the clearing, aside from the gunman behind him, and the girl.

On the seventh shot, he discovered that the bullets were indiscriminate when they hit someone in the head. A giant would go down just as easily as a human in that scenario.

He stopped shooting after the fifteenth shot.

Everyone left had their hands raised in the air.

"DON'T SHOOT! WE SURRENDER!"

...

Then the clearing was quiet.

For a full ten seconds, nobody said or did anything.

…

And then he felt sick.

 _That_.

That was different from killing animals.

He took a deep breath, and exhaled.

...

He really just wanted to go home now.

Sparing a moment, he glanced around the clearing.

There were ten other people left alive. Two humans, three if he counted himself, and eight other members of various other species.

Bodies absolutely _littered_ his surroundings. Dozens of them were lying around on the ground in various positions, and none of them were moving.

When he looked at the girl again, he expected to see a lot of fear in her expression. Instead, he was quite surprised to find a lot of relief and general happiness there. Like she _hadn't_ just witnessed a massacre.

"You," Gohan broke the silence with his _still_ -raspy voice, by pointing at one of the creatures that had just surrendered to him. "Untie her," he gestured towards the girl.

The giant creature quickly followed his instructions without hesitation.

Shutting his eyes, Gohan started to rub the bridge of his nose again.

His headache just wasn't going away. It probably wouldn't for a while yet either, at this rate.

The girl stumbled forward when her bindings were released.

She glanced around hesitantly, almost disbelievingly. Like she couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that she wasn't a prisoner anymore.

Slowly, she started to walk towards him.

They locked eyes with each other, and she smiled at him.

It made no sense to him at all, how _anyone_ could smile at _anything_ , given what had just occurred.

After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak.

And then Gohan's vision was flooded with red and it felt like he had been slapped in the face.

...

The feeling was eerily familiar, and his mind flashed back to the only moment he had ever felt something like that happen before.

It had been back at his home in Mount Pauzu a long time ago. His mom had asked him to tell his dad that she was finished making dinner.

So he had run as fast as his little legs could carry him towards the river that he knew his dad was fishing at.

He got there just in time to get a face full of mud, as his dad had dropped a tree into a mud puddle, just as he had arrived.

When he came back to the house that day, with a face full of mud… mud that his dad had clearly tried, yet failed to clean off…

His mom was good at yelling, that was for sure.

…

He tasted iron.

There was a thud as something hit the ground in front of him.

Gohan tried to wipe off whatever grime was on his face with his hand to see what it was.

The girl was on her knees now with a hole in her stomach, bleeding profusely.

She looked at him one last time before she collapsed fully onto the ground.

She made a gurgling, choking sound for a moment, and then she stilled.

…

She was dead, he realized.

…

The clearing was silent again.

With a detached, blank gaze, he just stared forward at the group of prisoners that had _surrendered_ to him only moments earlier.

Closing his eyes, he felt his mouth form a thin line, before he took a deep breath, and then let it out a moment later.

…

Yup. The _other_ Gohan was in control now.

…

Then his eyes snapped open, and he drew on his Ki.

He gathered a _lot_. _Way_ more than he usually uses even in his experiments.

Way more than necessary.

He formed an unstable ball, and threw it at the remaining group.

There was a rain of red when it detonated, leaving nothing solid behind.

He killed them all in one shot.

Then he turned around, and pointed his stolen gun at the first and last gunman.

That same blank, robotic gaze was still there, despite everything.

He didn't know what it was about that gaze, but it pissed him right off.

This was the guy that started this whole mess by trying to shoot him in the first place.

Then he had tried _again_ from behind despite the fact that he was clearly beaten.

It was _his_ fault.

When Gohan pulled the trigger, the gun clicked.

Empty.

Without hesitation, he dropped the empty gun, and grabbed the man by the jaw, and twisted _hard_.

…

It was like twisting a rolled up sheet of bubble-wrap.

…

* * *

He hadn't moved, since.

He was still standing in the same spot, over a minute later just... thinking.

Why?

That pretty much summed up all of his questions.

Just... why?

...

He gave them a way out. They had lost. Why would they _still_ take the opportunity to kill that girl even after everything they had just witnessed him do? They _had_ to have known what would happen when they tried.

They _had_ to have.

It didn't make any sense.

He simply could not wrap his mind around why someone would do that.

He hadn't even _seen_ who had actually shot her either. But one of them clearly had.

…

How many people had he just killed?

There were a lot. _Dozens_ for sure.

Every single one of those shots were now welded into his mind. Every single one of them had killed someone, apart from _four_.

Just four misses.

Four misses from that first gun out of thirty-five shots, and no misses out of his second gun, which he shot fifteen times, plus the last gunman whom he had killed with his hands…

' _I guess that makes… forty-seven?'_

…

That was probably the first time he had ever regretted having basic mental math skills.

He was probably _never_ going to forget what he did today.

And it all made him wonder.

…

What _would_ someone watching him think?

* * *

'Okay,' he thought.

…

'Okay.'

…

It had taken him a little while to gather his thoughts.

He had almost ended up in a guilt-ridden, panic filled, self-loathing spiral, but he had managed to stop himself.

He had killed something like forty-seven people. Plus the two other giants from earlier. So forty-nine.

Fifty on the nose if he counted Radditz. An average of over ten for every year of his life.

Wait.

Plus those final eight that he had killed with that ball of energy...

Fifty-eight.

...

No… not killed.

He _relocated_ them to some other place in the other world.

They still existed in some form. He had already deduced that, a while ago. If someone's soul wasn't stored somewhere after their death, then when they were wished back to life with the Dragonballs the _things_ that came back wouldn't actually be them. Just exact copies with the same memories because the dragon would be reassembling them from scratch.

And he had worked out the logic for why that couldn't be the case, earlier.

...

 _That's_ what he was going to do.

He was going to walk out of this clearing, follow the road to the nearest town, and continue on his path to fighting the saiyans.

...

He would never tell anyone about what happened here.

Then quietly, someday... probably years from now, he'd undo everything with the Dragonballs.

He let out another sigh and glanced over at the line of green trucks.

…

Maybe he could figure out how to drive one?

It'd certainly be faster…

All of a sudden, he heard a groan amongst the bodies.

Glancing toward the sound, he found the leader from earlier, spread-eagled on the ground, rubbing his face with his hand.

 _'Its not over just yet...'_ Gohan thought to himself.

He placed the head on the ground, because he had no idea why he even bothered carrying it in the first place, and made his way over to the leader.

On his way, he picked up another dropped gun from the ground, just in case he needed it. It was the bigger type, that kept shooting when he held the trigger down.

He stopped walking a few meters away from the huge being. Closing his eyes, he used his energy to scan his surroundings as thoroughly as he could to check for any other potential survivors.

The one in front of him seemed to be the only one... wait. Not quite. There was one more hiding just over there-

"That was impossible."

His thoughts were interrupted when the leader started speaking.

"You're just some fucking, normal kid." He spat out a mouthful of blood. "There's no way you can be that strong."

Gohan raised an eyebrow, and responded in his raspy voice. "Why not?"

He was honestly curious about what this guy had to say.

"You're just a kid..."

"So?" He was unimpressed.

The leader grumbled in annoyance. And it was only then that Gohan really noticed how much damage his previous kick had inflicted.

He had been confused as to why this guy wasn't able to get up from a simple kick to the face, when he noticed that he had literally caved something in on his face.

The nose had been literally driven back into the skull, he was missing countless teeth, and was bleeding profusely, not only from his mouth, but from his nose, ears, and even from his eyes. The whole skull was just deformed.

It was amazing that he was even alive.

"You were warned," Gohan continued, when it looked like the leader wasn't going to continue. "Sid right?"

He was pretty sure that he had heard that name earlier. That was the name of the giant that he had spared earlier, in all likelihood. The one who led him to this base.

He wasn't alive anymore.

"Your own teammate warned you, and you ignored it." There was something about that that just _bothered_ him. It's what led to this whole mess in the first place. "You keep calling me a normal kid. Why? You've never met be before. You've never seen what I could do. You looked at me for less than a minute, and made a whole bunch of assumptions you had no right to. How'd _that_ work out for you in the end, I wonder?"

He had no idea why he was even talking to this guy. Or why this had gotten him so worked up. Maybe it was because of the fact that, if this guy wasn't so much of an idiot, he wouldn't have ordered his men to attack. You have to be truly stupid to ignore your allies' advice, and judge people by what they looked like, in his opinion.

"You forced me to kill your entire army because of that. Because you thought I was a normal kid."

...

"What are you?" The leader asked.

The question initially caught him flat-footed.

...

What am I?

There were any number of ways he could have answered that question. He could have gone on about how he was technically a descendant of an incredibly powerful, alien race.

Or, a person who had trained extensively in energy based abilities that someone like him could never hope to match.

He could have gone on about how he was probably one of the strongest people on the planet, despite his appearance, and he could have tried to demonstrate just how much of an idiot this guy was for choosing to attack him.

...

But he didn't do any of that.

Because while he was in the middle of thinking about how to answer such a question, an item off his list of mysteries was crossed out.

Piccolo.

Piccolo had spoken aloud about the Dragonballs and their abilities to Radditz, and that was the primary reason why two more saiyans were on their way here.

He had revealed what should have been considered top secret information, to a known enemy for what appeared to be no reason.

But there _had_ been a reason. Hadn't there?

He was in a similar situation himself now. An enemy asking about what should be considered top secret information.

And he had nearly answered.

That would have made him a hypocrite.

Radditz wasn't dead technically. He was relocated to another dimension. He knew that, and Piccolo probably did too. So, in his final moments alive, Piccolo had wanted Radditz to know that without any doubt, his mission was a total failure, and that he would die a meaningless death. So that for the rest of time, Radditz would be forced to stew in that knowledge wherever he would end up.

Piccolo wanted to defeat Radditz on every level. Both physically, and psychologically.

And even though it proved to be a mistake, it would have taken a ridiculous level of forethought to even _consider_ the idea that revealing that information, at that time, to a soon-to-be-dead enemy, would somehow come back to harm them.

...

It was always easier to point out the mistakes of others in hindsight. And he took pride in the fact that he could point out his own mistakes in the same fashion.

He understood that revealing secret information to an enemy was bad. He considered that an obvious fact. Yet he had _still_ nearly done it in the heat of the moment.

For the exact same reason as the one Piccolo must have had.

The fact was, nobody knew how things would turn out. All anybody could do was learn from the actions and consequences of the past, accept the mistakes for what they were, and move on.

Piccolo probably understood that better than anyone, now.

Maybe, even someone like Piccolo had regrets.

If their places had been exchanged, and he were the one to reveal that information to Radditz, and not Piccolo, he would probably beat himself up about it for the rest of his life.

He would absolutely regret it forever, and would never be able to forgive himself for it.

...

And so he was wrong to judge.

Because if anyone knew that that had been a mistake, Piccolo did.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

...

* * *

Gohan didn't need to do much else. The leader died only moments later.

He only needed to do one more thing before he could leave this place.

He turned towards a seemingly random capsule house, and started walking towards it.

* * *

 _ **Moments Later - Inside**_

He was still shaking.

After he had seen his teammates, those dumb shits, threaten to attack that demon child in the forest, he had booked it.

He didn't even care that he'd abandoned them, or that he'd be called a coward for showing up back at camp, without his team, babbling about ghosts living in the forest.

And that's exactly what had happened.

He had been told to get lost. And everyone had laughed him off.

They should have left this forest the day after they had heard those incredible roars in the distance some time ago. And had seen the massive explosions off in the distance.

Even though nobody had figured out what they had been, and they hadn't been seen or heard again, they had still been ordered to continue the mission anyway.

It was fucking bullshit.

And now there was some shit going down just outside. As soon as he heard the gunfire, and the screams, any idea about going outside to check out whatever was going on was squashed.

He hoped to god it wasn't that demon from the forest.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door slowly creaked open.

He glanced up at the front door, and nearly shit his pants.

Because it _was_ him.

In the doorway was that same creepy ass kid from before.

Dark, spiky hair that covered his eyes and a large section of his face, casting sharp angles upon it and making him look like some sort of hellspawn.

His hair was totally untamed, and went down his back, almost to waist level. He was thin enough to see bones under his skin, and was soaked in the blood of his victims.

But the part that really caught his attention was the fact that the creepy ghost kid had managed to get his hands on a machine gun, and was now pointing it at him.

His mind went blank, and they just stared at each other.

...

...

"Why are you here?" The ghost kid asked.

"W-what?" What kind of question was that?

"This place. Why were you all out here in this forest with that girl."

He just stared dumbly at the kid for a while, trying to find a way to answer that wouldn't get him killed.

"I-I don't know! It was just orders! I only got here yesterday! I have absolutely no idea why we are out here!" Honestly, he was surprised that he had managed to get even that out. His whole body was paralyzed from fear.

They stared at each other in silence once again.

...

...

"What does fuck mean?"

That one threw him for a loop.

I mean, what kind of bullshit question was that?

After a moment of staring in disbelief, the ghost kid prepped his gun to fire.

Holy shit. He was going to die if he didn't answer the question.

But what the hell should he say?

"Uhh, uhhh..." He scrambled for something useful.

"Set!" He finally shouted after another moment. His eyes were squeezed shut hoping his plan would work.

"Set?" The ghost repeated.

"What does set mean?" He finally asked the ghost. Because he would have to explain a whole heap of shit to even start trying to define the word fuck.

The ghost just stared at him for a while.

"That... was an excellent answer." The ghost finally stated, sounding amazed, before lowering the gun, and disappearing into the next room for a moment.

He came back out moments later with a pair of recently cleaned clothes that were approximately his size, and left out the front door the way he had arrived.

...

Holy shit, it had actually worked.

* * *

 _ **Outside - With Gohan**_

So the definition of fuck depended on context, did it?

The word 'set' had the most number of definitions in the English language. It had well over four hundred distinct meanings. By asking him that exact question in response, he had understood immediately what the giant was trying to say.

'Fuck' was like 'set'. So many definitions and meanings that he couldn't immediately come up with one.

What a creative answer. He honestly hadn't expected that.

It was an answer that appealed to his inner bookworm, and that made him smile.

He had let that giant live for that answer, it was so creative.

That guy clearly hadn't been involved in what had happened out here, and that had been the giant that had run from him in the forest in the first place.

And besides, he had killed enough people today.

It was a relief to know that there was at least one person who had lived.

He started walking towards the line of trucks at the end of the clearing the moment he finished getting changed into his newly acquired clothes, and wiped as much of the grime off of his face as he could manage.

He was surprised to find a set that were only slightly bigger than what he needed. He had spotted a room full of folded up clothes out of the corner of his eye the instant he entered that building.

He picked a pair of navy blue pants, and a slightly lighter blue T-shirt.

And most importantly socks. Socks and shoes that actually fit him.

It had been so long since he had worn any.

Putting on a set of clean clothes was one of the best things he had felt in weeks.

He was now ready to go into town.

 _BOOM!_

A massive explosion rocked the clearing, as all of the capsule houses ignited in a massive fireball at once.

The shockwave was so huge that it blew him off his feet, despite him being over fifty meters away from the closest house.

He didn't even realize what had happened until his ears stopped ringing almost a full minute later.

Slowly, he managed to crawl to his feet, and he looked around at the clearing.

He could already feel the heat.

All of the remaining buildings were on fire, and had been completely destroyed.

A look of realization, crossed his face.

Did that...

Did that giant do this?

Running back to the house he had just been in, he got as close to the front entrance as he could before the heat became too unbearable.

There, inside, were the remains of the giant.

Gohan just stared at the remains for a while, trying to figure out what had happened.

The giant hadn't moved.

The giant was dead.

...

He had no idea what had just happened.

He needed to leave though.

He just had this really bad feeling the longer he stayed here.

Slowly, he turned around and started making his way back to the line of trucks. He extended his senses as far as they would go, trying to find out if there was anyone in the treeline.

It felt like he was being watched by someone.

Then he froze.

His mind had supplied him with a completely bizarre idea totally unrelated to the blast, the moment he laid his eyes on the girl's body from earlier.

Out of his urgency to leave, he nearly dismissed it instantly. The feeling was getting worse and worse the longer he stood there, and his new idea would keep him there longer than he needed to be.

...

After a moment of indecision, he decided to ignore his progressively worsening feeling and went for it. He could only hope that he wouldn't regret it.

He really didn't want to be anywhere near a group of buildings that had exploded for seemingly no reason.

* * *

A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.

\- LeviTamm


	16. Chapter 16: Day in the City

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Shorter chapter this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**

* * *

Gohan had no idea what town he was in. He had simply traveled down the road he had found in the forest without making any turns at all.

Learning to drive had been surprisingly simple. One pedal made the car go forward, and the other made it slow down. The rest all depended on the orientation of the steering wheel. Since he hadn't had to deal with any traffic, or complicated rules, he had managed to drive all the way to a city somewhere.

It had only taken about an hour too.

He had spent that time doing a couple of things. The first was driving of course, but he had the basics of that figured out in just a few minutes. The majority of his concentration had been spent on planning out his next move, and manually beating the heart of the girl next to him with his energy.

He didn't know where the idea had come from, and he didn't even know if it was working, because she hadn't woken up at all during the duration, but he figured he'd try it out anyways.

It would at least give her a shot at surviving, however small.

It was easy for Ki to contour to physical objects. And he could 'see' through things with it. So he had flooded the girl's body with his energy, 'grabbed' her heart, and started manually beating it at a constant rhythm to hopefully keep her blood flowing.

After he had gotten the hang of it, he started periodically inflating her lungs by a similar process.

The rest of his energy was focused on keeping all of her blood inside. Which was done by compacting the majority of the energy he had pumped into her.

A human body of course, was way to complicated to just fix up with such primitive energy techniques, but he had figured that the theory of what he was trying to do made sense on paper.

He couldn't go trying to repair any severed veins or arteries, as he had absolutely no idea how to even attempt that, or even what vein was supposed to connect to where, but he could ensure that any blood that would normally escape her body, would instead be forced back into it somewhere.

It may have been a lost cause though. She had stopped breathing for a significant period of time before he had tried to intervene. He had no idea what kind of brain damage might have taken place during that time, if any had occurred at all. And now she was suffering from severe internal bleeding.

But, she might have a shot.

He had stopped the truck close to a busy street.

He had no idea where the closest hospital was, and he didn't want to leave the girl's side to try and ask someone on the street either. But he had come up with a plan on the way there, and he was about to execute it.

He was just waiting for there to be an opening on the street outside. People were walking by, and he needed to wait for there to be a gap in the crowd so nobody would see what he was about to do.

The truck had a roof and tinted windows, so the people outside couldn't see him very easily, which was certainly convenient. He didn't want anyone out there interfering.

So he waited.

And when a sufficient gap in the crowd showed up, he opened the door, and levitated himself, and the girl onto the pavement a short distance away.

...

Then he blew up the truck with a ball of energy.

…

He didn't want to go to a hospital in person, mostly because his mom would find out if he did, so he decided to make one come to him.

Emergency services would arrive eventually to inspect the blast, and when they arrived, they would find a girl who wasn't breathing, and with serious injuries on the sidewalk.

He just needed to hide in the smoke in the meantime.

And just to make sure that no nearby pedestrian would come close to the truck out of curiosity, he fired a few extra Ki blasts across the sidewalk and road, creating a sizeable amount of damage, and a smoke screen.

Then he returned his attention back to the girl and continued the process of oxygenating her blood.

…

When the ambulance finally arrived, accompanied by the police, and they started to investigate the area, he levitated skywards, ensuring that he stayed inside the shroud of rising smoke, and out of sight.

He watched as they carried her body into the ambulance, and sped off, siren's blaring.

…

He'd probably never know if she made it, but at least he had tried. There was at least one thing he didn't regret doing today…

* * *

Finding a library was his next goal. They had computers, which had the information he was looking for. He needed a way to make money, so he needed to find out if there were any events going on in the city.

He had figured that a police officer would know where one was, and he had conveniently just summoned a few of them.

So after he had escaped the scene of the explosion, landed in a back alley, and waited for a few minutes, he prepared a quick backstory for himself and walked up to an officer, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Excuse me."

The officer turned around to face him. He was very unintimidating. Nothing at all like the people he had met in that clearing earlier.

"Oh, what can I do for you, kid?""

"What happened here?" Gohan asked as innocently as possible, gesturing towards the flaming wreckage a short distance away. They had blocked it off with barricades, to make sure that nobody got too close.

The officer scratched the back of his head in confusion and responded. "Well, we're not really too sure. We're still trying to figure it out. A truck exploded, and somebody nearby was seriously hurt by it." He glanced back at Gohan and seemingly started panicking.

"She's on her way to the hospital though, so she should be alright!" He continued with his hands raised in front of him. "Capsule Corporation has some amazing medical technology after all!"

Gohan didn't really understand why the officer was panicking. Was he trying to placate him?

"Right… well... " Gohan began awkwardly. He was really bad at ordinary conversation with strangers. "I hope she's okay."

He scratched the back of his head nervously, before gathering his courage and initiating his plan.

He was about to lie to an officer.

"Do you happen to know where the library is?" He asked.

The officer seemed taken aback by the sudden change in topic.

"The library?" He parroted.

"Yeah. I promised to meet a friend of mine there. Do you think you could point me the way?"

"Uh... yeah… sure, kid." The officer pointed down the street. "If you just go straight down this street here, you'll see it just on your right. In fact, if you look carefully you can even see the entrance from here. See that white sign there?"

Gohan faced in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a white sign about fifty meters away with 'library' written on it.

It was certainly convenient that it was so close.

"Yeah, I see it! Thanks officer!" Gohan tried to force himself to sound excited.

The officer smiled. "No problem, kid. You have a good day, now!"

Gohan took a few steps in the direction of the library, then deliberately paused for moment, before spinning back around to face the officer.

He pulled a note that he had written earlier out of his pocket. There had been a pen and pad of paper in the truck he had borrowed, earlier.

"Oh yeah, one more thing," Gohan began. He pointed towards the alley he had walked out from earlier. "There was some guy wearing a hood back there who wanted me to give you this."

Gohan handed the officer the note then spun back around before he had a chance to respond, and started to jog towards the library.

"Thanks again for everything!" He called back to the officer.

...

The officer would probably be busy for a while.

The note detailed the general location of almost sixty dead people after all.

He had figured that the police should probably know about it…

So he had come up with a story about a suspicious stranger and fed it to the officer to try and stay out of it all.

* * *

He learned a lot at the library, that's for sure.

In his biology textbooks at home, he had read about the process by which animals reproduced.

Sexual reproduction. There was an entire chapter about it that explained it all in detail. But for some reason, he had never made the connection that humans did the same thing.

One of the first things he had looked up was the definition of the word 'fuck'. He had been unsure of the spelling at the time, but it didn't take too long to figure out. He had thought for a while that it started with a 'ph', as in 'phone'.

That whole branch of research had led him on a very strange journey throughout the internet that led to some strange websites, and a huge number of blocked ones that he couldn't access.

It was the most versatile word he had ever seen.

It could be used anywhere. As a verb, a noun, an adjective... and sometimes all three at once. And sometimes it was just thrown in a sentence for no reason.

There was this whole branch of language that wasn't in any of his books. It was like english had been separated into two distinct types. An informal variant, and a formal one. Formal english being the type he used all the time at home, and the informal type he had just learned about, was much less strict on grammar rules, and contained an entire subsection containing nothing but curses and insults.

There were pages upon pages of words and phrases meant for the singular goal of being as rude, and insulting as possible.

He had even managed to find the meanings of those words he had heard from the giants earlier.

'Fuck', 'shit', 'bitch'...

Such strange words…

After reading up on them, he vowed to himself to never say any of them in front of his mom.

He could only imagine the disaster that would unfold if he tried…

But, the main reason he had gone to the library had been to find an opportunity to make money. And he had made progress on that front as well.

His first thought had been to go to this place called a 'casino'. He could probably make a lot of money off of some of the games that were there if he used some of his abilities. The problem was, he had to have a certain amount of money to start out with, and he was currently penniless. The other problem was he wasn't old enough to get in.

So he had to scratch the idea.

The second idea had been almost immediately dismissed. That was to just steal either the money or the capsules that he needed. He'd maybe do it as a last resort if there was no other way, but otherwise, he'd just go with his third option.

There was an event going on in the town, kind of like a carnival. And there were a few events going on in that area that offered prize money.

These sorts of events seemed to be a prime location for martial artists and bodybuilders, as a means of advertising. A martial artist's sponsor, would get them to show off their abilities at public events, so they could gain a larger following. And one of the ways they had chosen to do this was by offering cash prizes to people who could defeat these martial artists or body builders in some form of contest.

What that contest turned out to be, depended on the person giving it.

He had left the library as soon as he had seen the article, and was on his way there, now…

* * *

Arm wrestling?

He had never heard of it before.

The crowd had been easy to spot from a distance, so he had pushed his way to the front to see what was going on.

Sure enough, this was one of those cash events he had found out about.

The challenger, and the martial artist would lock arms, and see who could get the other person's arm to hit the table first. It was an interesting idea, and now that he had seen a few matches, he had every intention of trying it out himself.

The award was a lot of money. Two hundred thousand zeni for the victor.

The martial artist offering the money certainly had to be confident to offer that much. Or rich.

That was almost half of the first place prize amount in a World Martial Arts Tournament. It would solve all of his money problems without a doubt. He could get everything he needed, and more with that much.

The guy was pretty big... but he had seen bigger.

Overall he wasn't really that impressed with the strength he was seeing.

Oh, well.

It was free money, and it would be going to a good cause.

So when the next challenger lost his match, Gohan stepped up to the chair and sat down…

* * *

"What the…"

The martial artist had a deep baritone voice, unlike any he had ever heard before.

"Is there a problem?" Gohan asked.

The crowd had gone silent.

The martial artist looked stunned.

Gohan waited for a response, and what he got didn't really surprise him. Though privately, he'd admit that it irritated him a great deal more than it should have.

Laughter.

The whole crowd just started laughing.

So did the martial artist.

Any thought of going easy on the guy vanished from Gohan's mind in that instant. Images of the last few people to laugh at him began to cross his mind. They were fresh, having happened earlier that same day…

He was already anticipating the absolute satisfaction he was going to feel after he buried the guy.

The martial artist put a palm over his face, to wipe some of the tears away.

"Kid, this is no place for someone like you…"

Then he began to ramble on and on about how young he was, and how he should go back to his parents.

But Gohan had stopped listening, waiting patiently for him to finish.

He had heard it all before…

When the guy had finally finished talking, Gohan simply waited for a few moments in silence. Then he raised his right arm, and rested his elbow on the table in the starting position for the match.

He wasn't playing anymore. He hated being underestimated.

Gohan wasn't smiling anymore.

"Put your arm on the table, or give me my money."

That certainly put a look of surprise on the guy's face.

"Choose."

…

Apparently, some part of his expression got the message across, because the martial artist stopped laughing.

The crowd continued on though.

The martial artist finally sighed.

"Fine, kid. I hope you learn something from this…"

They both locked arms to the amusement of the crowd.

"Begin," the ref announced.

* * *

As soon as the contest began, it ended.

The wooden table exploded into thousands of splinters, the martial artist's arm shattered, and he was buried almost two feet into the concrete floor.

Gohan didn't feel his glare lessen until he was absolutely sure that his feat had silenced the crowd.

Perhaps utilizing so much Ki like that had been overkill. But he wanted to make sure that there was no doubt of the legitimacy of his win. He would not allow an outcome where the spectators could try to make the argument that the martial artist had thrown the match.

They all needed to see the damage to the table, and the two foot crater in the ground first hand.

You can't fake that by throwing a match.

Gohan stood up from his chair after a moment, which had miraculously survived the impact, and he walked towards the ref's table in the deafening silence.

The martial artist's sponsor was seated behind the table with a slack-jawed expression. He had been counting the stack of money in his hand, but when the impact had occurred, he had froze.

Gohan walked up to the guy without a word and simply held out his hand and waited.

It took the guy almost ten seconds to understand the situation and hand over the money.

Gohan counted it on the spot to ensure it was all there, before he spun around and started walking away without another word.

The only sounds in the area were the pain filled groans of the martial artist.

He had been right. That had been so satisfying...

* * *

Finding a store that sold capsules had been simple.

They were standard, widespread, and almost every store had them.

He picked up a capsule house, and an assortment of other capsules came with it. A vehicle of some kind, there were some appliances, a giant box that served as a storage area, and some dishes, utensils, and various tools.

A lot of it would come in handy in the future. He hadn't even thought about picking up some of those things…

While he was at the store, he also picked up a large amount food. Probably a year's worth. And he stored it all inside a preservation capsule specifically designed for that purpose.

Since he still had a lot of extra money that was essentially useless to him, he decided to buy a set of scalable weights. They were designed for martial artists, and they could be set to weigh up to several tons.

Finally, he spent the last bit of money he had on a set of assorted scientific equipment. Because it was time for him to start getting serious about his training. He wanted to know what Ki was, how it worked, and what its precise properties were. He needed to start making more precise measurements with advanced tools to get that information.

He bought everything he could think of getting, and made sure to use as much of the money he had on him as he could.

After paying for it all and ignoring all the strange looks he received at his purchases, he capsulized everything and started walking towards the edge of town.

It was time to get back to training.

He left the city limits, and returned to the forest.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **- LeviTamm**


	17. Chapter 17: Progress

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Hello again. Sorry for the wait.**

 **The reason for it this time however was not due to a lack of progress in the story. Frankly, the opposite happened. The next two chapters of this story after this one, are pretty much complete right now, and will be published over the next few days. I'm just going over them again in the meantime. I wanted to bridge the gap to the saiyans before publishing anything more.**

 **I also decided to publish another story that has just been sitting on my computer for the longest time. It's not DBZ related, and it'll be up soon too if anyone's interested. If not, that's cool too. May even be a third there as well, one that isn't all that serious though.**

 **This chapter turned into a bit of an info-dump. But everything here is important for the story, so I figured it was better to get as many explanations out of the way now, rather than waste time on them later.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

He was living in wonderful times.

The civilization that humanity had managed to build so far simply amazed him.

He really hadn't appreciated it living in isolation on Mt. Paouzu with his parents. He had read about it all back at home, but seeing it all for himself was something else.

The things that the people on this planet had invented were amazing.

The internet especially.

That was probably ranked second, in his view, on the list of the most important and influential inventions ever created.

It had started out decades ago as a way for the military to communicate over long distances, and had only been released to the public when its widespread usefulness became more evident, and computers had gotten more powerful.

Strangely enough, it was widely agreed that King Piccolo had been the cause of its inception.

After he had been defeated some three hundred years ago, and Earth's global military had been created and unified once again from the ashes, humanity had begun a massive technological revolution to try and make sure that a threat of that scale could actually be dealt with the next time.

And eventually, after almost three centuries of rebuilding, repopulating, and extensive research and development by the surviving population, computers had come out. And the internet had been short to follow.

That's how the story went, anyways.

And once it was out, and in the hands of the public, there had been no going back. Out of the military's hands, it had doubled in power, size, scale, and potential, every single year since then without pause, and was in the process of doubling again.

Right now, it was predicted that about half of all sentient beings on Earth, had access to it in some form.

But that wasn't enough apparently. He had read an article recently, online, that had astounded him.

There were organizations, and entrepreneurs across the world coming together now under a movement simply known as "The Internet For All." Which was a movement that did exactly as it sounded.

Make access to the internet a basic right for all citizens.

Human or otherwise.

There was such a diversity of sentient species spread out across the planet that had been cut off from each other since King Piccolo's reign of terror. And possibly even since before then.

But with the rise of widespread, instant communication, all it took was one random person with access to satellite internet, to stumble upon a previously untouched population of people, and to initiate first contact.

And by the next day, it would be all over the news.

Hundreds of these populations had already been discovered. With them, massive funding into satellites with cameras pointing down, and for expeditions into unmapped territories, had appeared. All in order to find the rest of these scattered peoples.

And when these populations were finally found, every time, they would be given access to this world wide network at no charge.

The money just wasn't needed. Instead, when they linked up with the rest of the world, these people would bring their culture, their history, and their knowledge with them, for the rest of the world to share in.

And with all of this new data, the internet was pushing back every known barrier in knowledge at once.

It had once been thought impossible to know for certain, what humanity's history beyond three hundred years ago entailed, for instance. Almost all of it had been lost in the Piccolo Wars. So much in fact, that one of the most common conspiracy theories that people actively believed in in the world, was that they hadn't even happened at all. That it was just some bedtime story.

Yet more and more evidence arrived by the day by people all around the world. And all of it was being published online.

Uncontacted populations from around the world would be found to share the same story. Of a demon with great power bringing the old world to its knees. The details were nearly exact between them too, with only a handful of discrepancies. Minor mistakes, really. Ones that were to be expected, when a story like that was preserved orally from generation to generation for centuries by such small, isolated communities.

Small mistakes would be introduced all along the way.

But this wasn't the only thing humans were learning from this arrangement. In this... _quest_ for knowledge, many of humanities preconceptions had been overtly challenged.

Many diseases that the medical community had never been able to defeat before, turned out to have simple, primitive, herbal remedies by some of these isolated communities.

Now there were medical researchers, with advanced degrees, travelling around the world to visit these remote locations to learn how they worked.

The tree of life, and the fossil record, which made up the foundation of humanity's knowledge on how they had come to be, had been shown to be totally inadequate. Thousands of new species had been found, and more were being discovered almost daily. Each with weird new properties that had never been seen before.

There was now a huge effort by the scientific community at large, to re-categorize them all, and update their understanding of life, accordingly.

Humans have been shown to be hardly unique in their intelligence, too. And this was the lesson that seemed to have had the most significant societal impact, recently.

Humans were not the only sentient species on Earth with intelligence. Not even close. Nobody knew how many there were for sure, but there were thousands of others.

Some were very closely related to dinosaurs. Some were related to bears. Others were tiger-like. Some had wings, and some lived in the oceans.

But when you took a random sample of humans, gave them a test to measure their intelligence objectively, and compared those results to those of other intelligent members of other species, they were often indistinguishable.

Humans weren't special in the way that they thought they were. In fact, the only correlation known to be unique to humans had to do with the variation on their intelligence.

All other known intelligent species had members in them that were not even self aware, despite being genetically similar. Animals, essentially, with the same genetics as other members of the same race, that could carry on perfectly lucid conversations with any human.

Humanity itself didn't have this trait. There were no animal-minded humans, who ran around acting on instinct. Not to the extent of every other intelligent species anyways.

And science had yet to explain that.

But smart people everywhere were trying to figure that one out, too.

...

The internet had started it all, and this worldwide learning process was only going to get faster in the future.

Recently, websites had appeared that allowed anyone to record and upload video footage.

Which actually made him a bit worried. What was going to happen when his dad fought in the public eye again? When he started throwing around massive energy blasts? All it took now, was a single person to pull out a video camera.

There were already forums online, full of people talking about the infamous World Martial Arts Tournaments. But good quality video footage hadn't been widespread back then, so most of his dad's group of friends, and their abilities, were currently being openly debated. With the only people believing any of them to be real, being past spectators of the fights.

But that would change eventually. Once some more thorough, public investigations started to take place, and everyone started to realize that there was unanimous agreement between all of the past spectators of those fights, people who would swear on their life about what they had seen, and once high quality video of his dad fighting appeared… well, he wasn't actually sure what would happen.

Most of the best martial artists were pretty secretive people. So much so, that the public at large was mostly unaware of how strong the strongest people actually were. And they didn't know a thing about Ki, or about magic.

He was pretty sure that the World Military was aware of it all. It was their business to know those sorts of things after all. But the average person didn't seem to.

So when it became evident that there were essentially gods walking among them, what would the people do?

He had no idea.

As it was, the strongest people currently recorded on the internet databases were a joke.

That person he had arm wrestled back in the city? He had been declared one of the strongest. Not the best, but probably in the top fifty for sure…

He had looked him up, afterwards.

And he had buried that guy into the ground with basically zero effort.

He had actually been a bit concerned when he had seen a local news article about that. One about that guy's defeat by "some kid". He had read the article pretty thoroughly himself, but there hadn't been any cameras around at the time thankfully, to see his face.

But the part that worried him was the fact that the public had actually believed the story. That's how effective this new wave of internet backed journalism was becoming.

It was getting harder and harder for the average person to remain ignorant of these things.

There had been published photos of the crater he had made with the guy. Forensic scientists had even appeared to look for any crucial evidence he may have left behind in the area, and there had even been a forum online, of a random guy, or group, analysing the photographs and throwing around physics equations to determine with a scary amount of precision, just how much force had been required to make such a crater.

It had been two and a half feet deep into concrete. Most of the sentient dinosaur species couldn't pull off a feat of strength like that. And they were widely considered to have the most physical strength on average, of any currently known sentient species.

People were debating the science behind impact craters now, at least in that particular corner of the internet, and analyzing the guy's leaked X-Rays to look at the kind of damage present in the shattered bones there.

Gohan did feel a little guilty for putting him in the hospital after seeing those images himself...

And the people that had seen the event first-hand, were being interviewed. But the description they had given, of "a small child with long black hair," had been pretty much unanimously declared by the online internet sleuths as "totally unhelpful".

At least he had had the foresight to hide his tail under his clothes at the time. If he hadn't, these people would have been able to give a description of him that would have turned out to be much more effective.

There weren't too many people in the world to his knowledge, that looked like a totally normal human aside from a monkey-like tail extending from their lower back.

He had to be careful now. He could no longer perform some seemingly remarkable feat with the knowledge that only first-hand witnesses would believe it had ever happened. Now the news of anything seemingly unbelievable, was investigated with a determination that was a little frightening.

It made him dread the article that would inevitably come out about the massacre he had committed back in that clearing.

That'd catch the internet's eye like nothing else.

He had been a bit surprised that it hadn't come out already, in fact. But it was probably in the pipeline somewhere…

And when it came out, there would probably be a firestorm. There always was whenever a murder took place.

...

But, yeah.

He'd call the internet, as great as it was, the _second_ greatest invention by humans.

But to be fair, it did radically amplify the power of the first best…

The first had to be Dino Caps. Without a doubt.

Nobody had seen them coming when they had first been released. And they propelled Capsule Corporation, and Dr. Brief in particular, to the most well known names in history.

For Dr. Brief's incredible intellect, his friendly demeanor, and of course, his surprisingly ruthless business practices.

The release of the first Dino Caps had been controversial to say the least. It had been the first time ever, where knowledge of fundamental physics was owned by a company rather than shared for peer-review by the scientific community.

Dr. Brief had designed a destruction mechanism inside every single one of his capsules. One that completely halted any attempt to reverse engineer them, or to understand how they worked. It would activate the instant someone tried to dissect one, or take one apart. Instead, upon breaking one open, all you would find is a chunk of worthless metal.

They were introduced forty nine years ago, and in all that time, still nobody had figured them out.

But, perhaps controversial wasn't the right word for them.

The release of that technology, and the subsequent withholding of the physics behind them from the public at large, had nearly started a war.

Especially because Dr. Brief had used his new technology to shatter nearly every monopoly held by a corporation at the time.

He released a capsule house, at less than half the market value of a normal house.

At that point, who needed the housing market, when you could just pick up a capsule house?

It essentially single handedly collapsed the industry, while throwing a massive wrench at the government's ability to tax a person for owning a property. Nobody needed one anymore, because they could just carry all of their belongings in a capsulized house and move anywhere on a whim.

He released the first capsulized car too, to much the same effect. Ruining an industry there as well.

And the first capsulized motorcycle, and the first capsulized storage containers, and the first capsulized boats, submarines, airplanes, and a whole host of other capsulizable products.

There had been such an outcry from large corporations, and so much lobbying, that what he had done had nearly been declared illegal by the World Government.

But there hadn't been any anti-monopoly laws at the time. So what Dr. Brief had done couldn't be punished until a law could be written up, first. And since the situation had been totally out of left field, and absolutely unprecedented, they had been unable to come up with one for a few years due to the extensive bureaucratic hoops that needed to be navigated, and by then, Dino Caps had been totally ingrained into society. Other industries, crucial ones, had depended on their existence by that point, so a simple ban of all Dino Caps wouldn't work anymore.

The best anyone could really hope for at the time, was a law demanding Dr. Brief and Capsule Corporation to hand over the designs at the very least.

And that's exactly what had been tried.

Dr. Brief had refused of course.

After showing up in person to meet with the King, and going through all of the security in the building, the story went that he had simply opened up a suitcase containing a hundred or so capsulized, and fully active nuclear warheads. A suitcase that had seemed harmless to the security detail, all of the X-Rays, and all of the metal and chemical detectors that he had had to bring it through.

Demonstrating to the world just how terrifying the technology could be in the hands of not only the military itself, but any madman at the head of an organization with any significant power behind it.

It was a combination of technology that could not be defended against by any means. You couldn't tell, from the outside, what was contained within any capsule. You needed more information for that. With millions of capsules worldwide, any of which could contain anything, the government had no choice but to back off.

Leaks happened all the time in the government. It couldn't keep a secret to save its life, and the government itself, or rather, the King at the time in particular, knew it. If they had such designs in their possession, they would get out to the public at some point.

It was inevitable.

Despite that though, the World Military had still tried to get Dr. Brief to release them anyway. So the King himself had to step in to veto the newly proposed law.

Ordinary nuclear weapons did exist by different groups around the world, but they at least had to be delivered by aircraft, or by a ballistic missile. But those could be defended against.

There was no way to stop an attack if one could just be capsulized though, and literally carried through airport security onto a plane in someone's back pocket. Which would absolutely happen, if capsule technology was understood by the public.

All it took was one person to do it, to cause untold damage.

Instead, Dr. Brief proposed a different solution. He offered the government a complete database of all capsules in existence, and a killswitch for every last one. The killswitch would activate a capsule's destruction mechanism, turning it into a chunk of harmless metal. The database extended automatically too, every time a new capsule was made.

With it, they had the ability to take down any madman using the technology for nefarious purposes.

In theory anyways.

Because there was no way to know for sure that every capsule was actually on the list. They all seemed to be, but Dr. Brief himself could have secret, or prototype capsules off the grid, and the government would have no way of knowing about them.

They basically had to trust that he wouldn't do anything dangerous, and admit that they couldn't stop him from doing so if he tried.

They were basically forced to admit that the Capsule Corporation was more powerful than the World Government.

But thankfully, in the forty nine years since their release, nothing bad had happened yet.

People used these capsules every day, and nobody knew how they actually worked.

But something had changed about a decade ago. Dr. Brief, despite not being the original inventor of the internet, saw its potential to change the world, and single handedly spearheaded another revolution.

In the nearly forty years before this new plan of his, he had perfected his methods of mass producing capsules, and as a result, they had become very cheap to produce.

He had literally been inflating their prices artificially just because that was what the people were willing to pay for them.

Why sell a capsule house for five hundred zeni, when people would pay five hundred thousand for it? Capsule Corp. was still the cheapest option either way.

But, despite Capsule Corporation being the cheapest prices for essentially everything, the other competing corporations, had managed to adapt. By focusing on higher quality, or niche items, they could still manage to make a lot of profit despite being twice as expensive, or more.

And Dr. Brief had seen an opportunity there.

Capsule Corporation was a company that focused on cutting edge research and development. It had never been about making the best houses or vehicles. That had just been where the money was.

He really hadn't intended to waste so much of his company's resources improving the quality of these capsulized items. He just wanted to push the front line of cutting edge physics again.

So he started making some backroom deals with his competitors.

He let them lease a product from him known as an Empty Capsule. And another one known as a Capsule Printer.

The Empty Capsule was exactly as it sounded. Nothing was inside it.

But the Capsule Printer, allowed a three dimensional computer design, to be downloaded into one. Which would allow the Empty Capsule to become something new.

This allowed these other corporations to use _their_ resources on improving the quality of these capsule products, instead of Dr. Brief having to use his.

They had already been making higher quality items than him, his had only been the norm because of their complete portability, their ridiculously low prices, and because they were good enough for most people.

But this partnership, allowed a fusion of the two aspects.

Now the Capsule Corp. logo was on higher quality items, and Dr. Brief basically had his former competitors working for him to make better and better products. This freed up his own resources and allowed him to do other things.

And his competitors had jumped at the chance they were given, because it destroyed the monopoly that Capsule Corporation had held over their markets for so long.

It seemed like a suicidal move at first, to an outsider, but with the new resources Dr. Brief had freed up, the first thing he did was create the Open Source Network.

Those deals he had made, had really just been a beta test for his Empty Capsules. To see if they would work, and to see if other corporations and people, would do what he had predicted with them.

And they had, so he released them to the public directly.

He got rid of his artificially inflated prices, and sold both his Capsule Printer, and Empty Capsules at as cheap a price as he could manage, directly to the public.

Then he allowed anyone with internet access to freely access the Open Source Network he had designed.

And that decision completely changed civilization.

With it, anyone with a basic knowledge of the capsule design software, could literally design and print out their own capsules for the cost of an empty one, and with access to a Capsule Printer.

The thing was though, the printer itself didn't have anything special going on inside it. They had been taken apart by people to see if they could finally glean any insight on how capsules worked, but they were really just a powerful electromagnet.

All of the magic went on inside the capsule, just like it always had. And just like always, the capsule would cannibalize itself if anyone tried to dissect it.

The Empty Capsule hadn't even been a new invention either. Neither had the printer, for that matter. Dr. Brief had been using them for years in his factories.

All capsules started out empty. All he had done, was give up his exclusive ability to download designs into them.

And since nobody knew how his empty capsules were built, everyone would have to still come to him to buy them.

And just like with the internet, when the public got their hands on this technology, they immediately started pushing its limits.

The Capsule Printer was immediately obsolete upon its original release, as planned by Dr. Brief. There was nothing special inside them really, so they had been taken apart, and a design for it had been uploaded to the capsule network by an anonymous user, who had released it for free.

The first few printers, essentially, printed out the next generation of printers for the price of an Empty Capsule each. Which made it unnecessary for anyone to buy one anymore at its original price.

And with these capsules becoming so cheap, the number of people who could afford them had been radically increased.

But so too, had the number of people trying to figure them out.

Dr. Brief's plan for the widespread release of his capsules came at a bit of a cost. A few details in their construction that had been carefully hidden from the public for decades inevitably leaked out.

They weren't infinite, for instance. You couldn't design a capsule for an object the size of West City, for example. They were actually limited to about the size of a skyscraper. And only then, by making some serious design concessions.

There was a finite amount of mass that any capsule could create. But people rarely ever needed to design something so large, so the limitation was hardly restrictive, and most people could make due with it.

Empty Capsules were restricted the most instead, by what was known as 'The Complexity Problem.'

Capsule designs were created on computers, by people using the software. So unless someone knew the atomic structure of every last thing in the design, it couldn't be created from scratch.

Food, plants, and organic material were prime examples of things fitting into this category.

You could still seal these things inside a capsule, so long as they were small enough to fit inside the capsule's expanded volume, but you couldn't create them from scratch yet. And wouldn't be able to until biology and organic chemistry was more thoroughly understood.

Because it turned out that a plate of spaghetti was far more complicated on the atomic scale than a microprocessor was.

So people could nowadays, for example, buy an Empty Capsule for dirt cheap, download a fully furnished house into it, print it out, expand the capsule out to its true form, import organic material into it, like plants or food products, then reseal the capsule, and these things would be waiting for you in the exact state that they had been in when they were originally sealed.

Organic matter could be placed inside after the capsule was printed out and expanded, but only if it fit inside, obviously. It just couldn't be designed from scratch yet.

And time was effectively frozen inside. So food wouldn't get mouldy or rotten.

That aspect had actually been thoroughly tested by scientists long before the Empty Capsule had ever been released, because it seemed to violate a lot of fundamental ideas in science. Highly accurate atomic clocks had been placed inside and capsulized, as had other instruments like radio transmitters, video cameras, and a whole regime of other equipment, to try and figure out what was happening during the miniaturization process.

And they basically had to accept the fact that time seemed to be frozen on the inside. Radio transmitters could not communicate to the outside world when they were capsulized, and atomic clocks would stop ticking until they were expanded again.

Gohan had taken advantage of these properties himself, with the house he had bought back in the city a few days back.

The store he had went to, had had pre-packaged capsules for convenience. This was to prevent a customer from having to go to the Capsule Printer to print out every last item that they needed to get, individually.

Instead, the staff at the store had printed out a house, a vehicle, a set of dishes, kitchen appliances, and a giant storage container, which was basically a giant refrigerator, and put them all into an easy to buy package for only a slight markup on the price of the same number of individual Empty Capsules.

And he had picked one of those up for the same reason that most others did. It had been quick and convenient, he didn't have to deal with any computer software, and the price markup had been barely noticeable.

He did end up with some things he'd probably never need though, as a result. The motorcycle for instance. What was he going to do with that thing?

Same with the kitchen set, and appliances. He didn't need those either, really.

Most houses from the Open Source Network were designed to be modular, and spartan. To prevent people from ever finding themselves in a situation where they really wanted to buy a house, but wouldn't because of a really ugly stove inside, or because they were being forced to buy a set of dishes with it that they hated, most houses were designed to have only the bare necessities inside. With everything else just being downloaded and printed out in another capsule.

His own house had been no different. And he had had to bring inside all of his kitchen appliances, and dishes separately.

The capsules that they had been contained in, had just been boxes with the dishes placed inside, so now he had a couple of extra empty storage containers to carry around with him after he had emptied them out and moved everything into his house

And there were a few inconveniences involved there.

You could not capsulize other capsules, for instance.

He could not leave any capsules inside his house, and then capsulize said house as a way of carrying them around. The house would simply fail to miniaturize, and do nothing.

The same thing would happen if there was not enough space for a capsule to expand.

In both cases, it just wouldn't. And the capsule would do nothing.

For some reason, that was just a fundamental limitation of them. There was some speculation about it in the scientific community. Saying that since they were clearly messing with matter at a subatomic scale, a miniaturized capsule should have an enormous amount of energy just sitting inside. If one was broken down by being inside another capsule that was in the process of miniaturizing, it could all be unleashed at once.

E = mc^2, after all. It could very well be a serious safety concern.

But only Capsule Corporation knew the real reason. Everyone else was left guessing.

So, he was stuck carrying his capsules around in a case everywhere he went, or leaving them inside his expanded house.

You also couldn't capsulize anything sentient. Like living animals or people. That had also been tried in the past by a handful of ridiculously curious people, but again, nothing had happened in those tests. You could get away with plants, and plant-like things like mushrooms, or even bacteria, but even spiders, insects, or rodents, couldn't be capsulized.

There didn't seem to be an iron clad rule classifying everything that could or could not be capsulized, and it was likely just a database upheld by Capsule Corp, that was constantly updated to include any new things that might be thought of in the future.

But despite all that, they were so useful, and so cheap. Most of the money he had spent at that store, in fact, had been on his food.

He had bought what he estimated to be about a year's worth. He had bought it all in bulk, and avoided anything fancy, sticking to the basics like eggs, and rice.

When it was all capsulized in that giant storage container of his, it all stayed fresh because of the time freeze it experienced, and he wouldn't have to worry about it expiring.

Still, it had eaten up pretty much all of his prize money from the competition he had won. Leaving just enough for that pack of capsules that his house had been in, and a few extra empty ones that he had used the store's printer on.

He had downloaded a weight set that someone else had designed on the network with one of them.

It had been designed for some of the larger species on Earth. As a result, they were made to be scaled up much more than any similar weight set meant for a human.

They were big, in other words.

They appeared to be body weights mostly. That was how his dad trained, so he had decided to emulate it himself. And it was possible to add more weight to them as needed. He would just have to print out some more from a store in another capsule.

As it was, he had several tons of weights in reserve for if he ever got strong enough to carry them around. In the meantime however, his weights were nowhere near that heavy, and he had yet to even try them out at all.

The rest of his capsules had been used for getting some equipment for a few basic experiments that he had wanted to run.

Nothing too fancy, really.

He had picked up a really powerful magnet, a very precise scale, and some solar panels for his house. Those were basically the only big things, and he had only picked up the solar panels because he was living off grid. Since so many people did that, it was pretty common to do, and they had a very easy set of instructions to follow, as a result.

It was all step by step, and he hadn't needed to know much of anything about electronics at all. His house had been designed to support the capability, and it had been refined by the designer to make it easy to set them up.

The only other thing he had gotten was a toolbox of assorted items. Some wire, hammers, screwdrivers, steel wool, a multimeter, and various other items that he didn't know the purpose of and probably would never use.

It was like a general purpose kit of everything he would need to live on his own, with some other stuff thrown in. He hadn't really looked through it all yet, but there was a lot there.

He had picked up everything he could really think of, to prevent him from needing to go back into the city again, and everything he could think of to answer his list of questions.

It was a pretty big list at the moment. One that had been on his mind, every day.

Every time something weird had happened around him, he had made a note of it, and now that he had a house, and a place to rest, and even a computer, he had started to write it all down.

It wasn't complete, and he knew that he was missing a few things, but he expected that they would come back to him at some point. And he'd write them down then. That always seemed to happen.

The _first_ one on his list had been about his dad of course. Why had he let Raditz's tail go?

No matter how much he had thought about it, he couldn't think of a justification. But he had become a little more open minded now that item number two had been crossed off his list, but he basically had to admit that he had no idea.

 _Number two_ had been about why Piccolo had told Raditz about the Dragonballs. There had been no reason for it at the time, logically.

But, he had been in a similar position himself just a few days ago when that huge guy back in the clearing, the leader of the people who had kidnapped that girl for some reason, had asked him to explain what he was, in his dying breaths.

He had nearly answered… and nearly became a hypocrite as a result. He understood the compulsion of wanting to get one last shot in at your opponent in their last moments now, especially now that he understood that death wasn't even real at all. That they would just stew in that knowledge for eternity, after being relocated to the other world.

He couldn't fault Piccolo for it anymore. Well he could, but he understood _why_ , now. So he was pretty sure he had number two crossed out.

 _Number three_ had been about why he knew Piccolo had told Raditz at all. What was up with his ridiculously vivid dreams? Were they even dreams?

It was possible, now that he had thought about it for a while, that Piccolo hadn't even told Raditz at all. Dreams were after all, pretty bad sources of objective information.

But everything he had been told, had fit. And that dream with those two saiyans had been absurdly realistic. It still messed him up a bit whenever he thought back on it.

The number of things that had to have happened in succession by coincidence for him to be able to write that off as just a dream were mind boggling.

And if it wasn't a dream, he had bigger problems than the saiyans on their way, he was pretty sure. People fast enough to circumnavigate the globe nearly instantly like that were dangerous, to say the least.

So, number three on his list was basically an explanation for all of the various dreams he had had. Why did he have them? Was the information he had learned from them, accurate? And why did he stop having them?

It was as if that forest he used to live in, had been just this magical place out in the wild that induced them. He had had two different ones in just a few weeks out there.

His first one being that one on his first day. That was the one he had had about Piccolo, and about finding the strength to survive on his own.

The closest thing he had had since, other than his saiyan dream, had been that weird hallucination with the puzzle pieces the day he had been nearly eaten by that dinosaur.

What did they mean? How did they occur? That was number three.

 _Number four_ was all about the first of the two confusing _explosions_ on his list, the one where he had woken up naked in that crater. The place where his old cave had been.

The place had been absolutely devastated. Craters were everywhere, and there had been so many that he had thought that some military organization had initiated a bombing run, or a weapon test.

What had happened that day?

He simply had no idea.

 _Number five_ was all about the conservation of mass. The law of physics that his dad violated all the time.

Gohan himself, had violated it that one time in the clearing with those deer, a while back. After that hellish run through the forest in his search for food.

He had eaten three of them in rapid succession, and had felt no heavier.

He had no idea what had happened, and since he had seemingly violated the laws of physics that day, it made his list.

This particular item however, he might be close to answering.

He had printed out a scale after all.

So after training himself into the ground one day some time in the future, he intended to eat ravenously after weighing both the food, and himself beforehand of course, and then weigh himself straight away again, afterwards.

The results of that particular experiment should be interesting.

But he had yet to do it. His leg was still a bit sore from his fall off that mountain a while back, and now that he was no longer fueled by adrenaline, running for his life, or living inside a dinosaur, the pain had kind of caught up with him recently, and he had taken the previous few days off to finish healing.

He had skipped the hospital visit, after all, so he wanted to be careful.

 _Number six_ was that whole situation with the giants in the forest. What were they doing out there? Why had they kidnapped that girl? What was the massive hole in the ground for? Why were they digging it?

None of that made any sense to him at all.

Had that police officer managed to find that clearing from the instructions he had given him on that note?

He would be kind of irritated if he learned that after all of his worrying about the public reaction to that massacre he left behind, the officer had just thrown out the note as soon as he had happened by a garbage can. Writing the whole thing off as some random kid's imagination.

...

And why was that group carrying around a severed head? Who even does that?

Putting aside the fact that it was pretty much at the very top of the list of the most evil things someone can do, it made no sense from a practical standpoint. Even assuming that they were the most vile sort of monsters imaginable, isn't carrying something like that around just totally inconvenient?

And he had just left it back there himself afterwards, too…

What was he even supposed to do in that kind of situation? What should he have done with it?

...

 _Number seven_ was kind of wrapped in with number six, but he counted it separately anyways. It was the second of the confusing explosions that had happened around him.

Why had all of those buildings in that very same clearing exploded after?

It had actually killed one of those giants. It didn't make any sense. Especially not if it was intentional.

If it had been caused deliberately by whatever organization that giant had been from, then he would have been killed by his own team members.

That giant had actually made him smile too, and Gohan kind of wanted him to live because of it.

Good old Number Four.

That had been the same giant he had met back in the forest after fighting his way out of that dinosaur. The one that had run away, while his three friends had attacked him.

The very same one to give him that clever one liner about the word 'set'.

Gohan had never learned his name. Simply referring to him mentally as Number Four, as he had been the fourth giant he had noticed back then.

In any case, he had no idea why that explosion had happened either.

 _Number eight_ was all about his hidden power. And he was still no closer to figuring that out than when he had first started trying.

His _body_ seemed to be in control of it, not him. So he may never be able to freely access it.

...

 _Number nine_ was about the organization, structure, and hierarchy of reality itself.

Why does the other world exist? Who is in charge of it? Why don't they intervene in this universe? Was reincarnation possible?

There were a lot of unknowns wrapped up in number nine. It was likely he'd never find the answers to them either until he died. And perhaps not even then.

He could possibly ask his dad at some point in the future about it though. _He_ may know.

 _Number ten_ was all about the rest of _this_ universe. The saiyans exist, or existed at the very least. How many more species like them were spread out throughout the universe?

How many potential enemies did Earth have?

And finally, _number eleven_ encapsulated everything about the mechanics of reality. This included his desire to know all of the laws of physics, as well as a complete mathematical description of both Ki and magic.

And this one, surprisingly enough, was the one he had made the most progress on recently.

He had seen a lot of weird things done with energy in the past. Both by his dad, and by Piccolo. And he wanted to know how it all worked.

...

He had actually just finished up a series of experiments that he had been wanting to do, pretty much since he had first unlocked his Ki.

He had had a hunch for a while now, about what Ki actually was, but he hadn't had the equipment at the time to prove it.

Well as it so happens, he had picked it all up back at that store in the city a few days ago.

And about an hour ago now, he had done all the experiments.

He had performed the series of experiments outside, seen the results, and then he had come into his house for a drink of water.

He had finished about half the glass, and then, while still pondering the results, the glass had exploded in his hand as three rapid fire world altering revelations had hit him one after another.

He had just been staring at the table for the past twenty minutes or so now, in silence. Watching as the puddle of water from his spilled drink slowly dripped from the table, onto the floor.

He was still there, in fact. Just trying to sort his mind out.

And letting it fly all over the place like it usually did.

...

It had never happened before. He had never had that many revelations in such a short period of time. Usually he would only get one at a time, on the rare occasions he got one at all. But three? That was just ridiculous.

He was absolutely sure that he had just glimpsed a secret of the universe, too. Possibly one that his dad may not even be aware of.

He could in fact be the first person to ever know the things he had just learned.

And it was a lot to take in.

Gohan glanced down at his hands.

…

They were shaking. His hands were still shaking.

His left was still bleeding a little bit from the glass he had unintentionally crushed with it, but it was of no concern to him, really.

But he was actually shaking. And he didn't really know what he was feeling either.

Was it excitement? Or anxiety? Or some mix of the two? He wasn't really sure.

His mind was just wandering all over the place now. Without direction.

..

He really needed to focus.

And that, admittedly, took him a significant effort to finally pull off.

Gohan took a deep breath, and sighed.

…

Then he went over it all again.

He had wondered what Ki was, ever since he had first seen it. What was its composition? How was it created? Where was it stored?

What state of matter was it, even?

Most of those things he hadn't been able to figure out directly, but he was able to figure out that last one easily enough. In fact, one of his experiments was meant to answer that question specifically.

A ball of Ki kind of reminded him of a water balloon. It felt sort of like a solid, but it was too malleable, and it could change its shape. Which really ruled it out as a possibility.

It wasn't really a liquid either though. It was very easy to compress and expand. And if he dropped his control over it, it would disperse rather violently in all directions, rather than fall to the ground like a liquid normally would.

So he had pretty much narrowed it down between either some sort of gas, or a plasma before even starting his experiment.

Well, he knew that a plasma was composed of freely flowing electrons and ions, and as a result they could be influenced by electric or magnetic fields.

So to test it out, he had made a ball Ki, grabbed the magnet that he had printed out at the store earlier, and put one next to the other.

...

And he discovered that Ki could be directly influenced by a magnet.

It arced, in the exact way that he had predicted it to arc if it were an actual plasma.

That explanation had fit every observation he had ever made of Ki. It made perfect sense.

And this had been his first revelation. Ki was just plasma. It didn't just act like a plasma, that's what it was. There was nothing at all special about it. And that was the truly amazing part.

He had then assumed that, because he was able to manipulate his Ki so easily, that he had another ability, one that granted him some control over electromagnetism.

So he had grabbed a handful of iron filings- he had actually spent a couple of minutes with his magnet filtering some from the dirt outside, to see if they would arrange themselves along the magnetic field lines that he was apparently creating with his ability.

...

And nothing had happened.

He had tried and, tried. Making balls of Ki near them, manipulating his energy in weird ways, and generally just doing whatever he could think of to make the filings move without directly pushing them around.

And he had gotten a null result that he didn't really understand at the time. But that follow-up experiment had given him his second revelation.

His ability to direct Ki had nothing to do with electromagnetism.

...

It was fundamental matter manipulation.

He literally had the ability to move matter around telekinetically, somehow. His Ki- plasma, just happened to be the matter that his body was set up to move around the easiest, for some reason.

And as far as he was aware, science had no explanation for something like that, yet. A process that could move all types of matter indiscriminately. Maybe whatever it was, was what was used inside those dino caps.

And then he had gotten his third revelation.

And it was so large that he had immediately called it 'the fundamental theory of Ki.'

There had been a divide in his mind for the longest time before that point. All of the supernatural stuff that happened around him was on one side, and all of the objectively proven scientific facts were on the other.

He had made some progress in acknowledging it, and knocking some of it over, but it was with these experiments that he had knocked it down almost entirely.

He had given that divide a good and solid _whack_ , and to his surprise, the whole thing had just dropped.

Both Ki and magic, were now accessible to science.

He was pretty sure he had just figured it all out with that particular revelation.

...

And he had to rethink everything.

There was no such thing as a ball of Ki. That phrase, was like talking about a ball of gravity. It just made no sense at all.

Ki was some sort of abstract potential energy that he had access to. It was like a bank account. And his body could make withdrawals from it, with which, he could use to make other forms of energy.

It was an exchange of values.

X amount of joules of Ki, get converted into X amount of Joules of another type of energy by some unknown process that his body could do naturally.

And this was where magic came in.

He had two distinct types of these abstract potential energies in his body. Each of which, had different properties. Properties as different from each other as mass-energy, and kinetic-energy were from each other.

His magic energy did nothing more than facilitate the exchange. It created this invisible _thing_ , that he couldn't detect. But he called it a 'Fundamental Energy Transform,' because that's what it did.

It was like a black box. He couldn't see the machinery inside one, but he could input Ki into one, and he would get an output of a different form of energy.

When he created a ball of what he used to call Ki, what he had really done was create this invisible magic black box, an energy transform, that converted his input Ki energy, into mass energy in the form of plasma.

And as far as he knew, he could make two different types of these transforms.

The other one he could make did the same thing, allowing him to input Ki energy, but it converted it into kinetic energy instead. Not a physical object. This type of energy being the type that was associated with the movement of an object.

He could directly subtract Ki from his reserves, and instantly, that exact amount of energy he subtracted, would be applied to an object he was focusing on by increasing its speed.

Like a bank account transfer. Where the accounts were the different forms of energy, and where the electricity cost was paid in magic.

When Piccolo had made that sword back then, he had, very likely, tapped into his own magic pool, used it to subtract energy from his own Ki stores, and added it in the form of mass energy on the ground. Then through some precision kinetic energy manipulation on the atoms he was creating, Piccolo arranged this new mass, into the form of a sword.

So there were likely other types of energy transforms that Gohan didn't know how to make yet. He could make plasma, and he could edit an object's kinetic energy, but that was it.

Piccolo could make raw protons and neutrons somehow, and arrange them into the form of complex molecules.

That was the sort of thing he needed to learn how to do himself at some point. He would also probably need to get a few books on particle physics. That was an area of study that he hadn't really started in on yet. He knew a couple of the surface ideas, but none of the math yet. He'd have to learn that in all likelihood to understand a little more of what was going on.

So, his Ki pool was just a number. It was just some sort of abstract potential energy sink. Some amount of Joules that could be added in any form to basically anything, but that couldn't be accessed without his other pool of energy. His magic.

...

Did that make him a god?

He had some authority over what happened in the region of space around him. If he wanted mass to suddenly appear in front of him, he could make it so, bringing it forth seemingly out of thin air.

He could control the distribution of all forms of energy around him, theoretically. He could increase an object's mass if it was near him, or increase its kinetic energy.

He could probably do a lot more, too. Those were just the two forms of energy he knew how to make right now. This whole series of ideas that had hit him since he had witnessed those experiments was just the tip of the iceberg. He could feel it.

His theory was incomplete, but he was pretty sure he was finally on the right track now.

And most importantly, he had covered enough ground to allow him to verify all of this through the scientific method.

A process he had seen summarized quite nicely in a random comment he had read on a forum on the internet.

Science was the process of throwing everything imaginable at an idea to try to prove it wrong. If you couldn't do it, and if nobody else could do it, and if the idea was at least possible in principle to falsify, then you had to keep it. Otherwise, you had to throw it out.

He needed to try and prove his new theory wrong.

How?

By objectively measuring how much energy he contained.

How much was in his Ki pool?

...

He had a few ideas to calculate this.

His first was to get a vat of full of water, measure its temperature as carefully as possible, make a ball of plasma, then submerge it in the water until it dissipates completely. Then he'd measure the temperature change of the water.

With some math, that should get him the amount of energy in one ball of energy of that size.

Then he'd create the same sized ball of energy over and over again until he couldn't anymore, and count how many he had made in total. That final count, with some more math, would allow him to get a rough estimate of the size of his Ki pool, in theory.

And once he had that number, all sorts of doors opened.

He could use a fraction of his Ki pool to move an object, to see if Ki energy could be converted to kinetic energy without any loss, as he currently expected. Does X number of Joules of Ki, produce X number of Joules of kinetic energy when converted through a transform? Or was there some energy loss?

Or, he could calculate how big an explosion he could make with the energy he had at any moment.

He could _feel_ his Ki energy. He had used it so many times already that it was trivial to estimate how much he had left at any time. But only in vague terms like "more than half," or "about ten percent."

So if he learned just how many Joules were in ten percent of his energy, he could calculate the maximum explosion size without expending any energy at all.

He could also measure how much energy it took for him to fly, which would give him some insight on how that process actually worked.

How efficient was he using his energy when he took off? Was he using the bare minimum? Or was he wasting a lot unnecessarily?

He would also be able to find out what the most efficient way to use his energy was.

If he wanted a ball of plasma some distance in front of him, what used more energy? Forming it directly at that distance, or forming it in his hand, then telekinetically pushing it there?

Was there even a difference?

He _could_ form a ball of Ki a few feet away from him directly, out of arm's reach, but it was noticeably harder to pull it off.

There was so much he could learn with this information.

He potentially had a way now, to attack these problems mathematically. The supernatural element was just gone now.

..

And that left him with so much work to do…

* * *

 **Months Later**

His meeting with Piccolo had been an interesting one.

He had lost track of the days during his time in isolation, and he had forgotten what day it had been when his dad had taken him to Master Roshi's island for that reunion. He hadn't even remembered what month it had been at the time. So he couldn't look at the current date to compare, and calculate the number of days he had been out there so far.

All he knew, was that he had been living in his capsule house for about two months before Piccolo showed up.

In that time, he had focused solely on his experiments, and on his training.

And he had learned so much from those experiments.

He had actually been in the middle of another one when Piccolo had finally arrived.

He had determined that he was likely going to be almost useless at the fight with the saiyans. He just didn't have enough time, and he didn't know how strong everyone was. So he had figured that he would try to create a special ability.

He had decided to create a one-off. An ability so powerful it drained his entire energy reserve at once, taking himself out of the fight. But, if unleashed as a total surprise, one that might take at least one of the saiyans out with him.

His size would likely cause them to underestimate his strength. They would probably conclude that since he was so small, he would try to make use of his maneuverability, and become really good at evasion and dodging.

He would do that, in all likelihood, but he had wanted something _bigger_.

...

A laser.

He wanted a laser.

A really big, really powerful laser.

Coincidentally, he had also been using his laser tests as a way to measure the size of his energy pool. By estimating the destruction, and comparing it to the amount of TNT required to make that same amount of it, converting it to joules, then measuring how much energy he had depleted with it.

Which again, gave him so much useful information.

He had a computer with satellite internet to look up a lot of the known values for TNT yields, and to look up how to do some of the more complicated calculations he was trying to do. So he had some pretty decent estimates.

He had been in the middle of one of these tests when Piccolo had arrived.

It had been his first successful one actually. He had emptied about eighty percent of his reserves, if his math was right, and he had nearly burned down the entire forest nearby, with it.

The laser was strong.

Since it was supposed to be a sort of surprise attack, he had decided to not use his hands to make it, too. He wanted to be able to fight with both hands, and still be able to fire it off.

His feet obviously didn't work either for the same reason, so he had decided to form it just in front of his mouth.

It was pretty difficult to make it form from there, and it had taken a lot of attempts, but he did eventually manage it. Now he just had to learn how to make it in a reasonable amount of time.

Because it took him a couple of minutes at least, to charge up.

...

He had also almost knocked himself unconscious from exhaustion with that test.

He remembered seeing the burning forest through his blurry eyes, and then suddenly, a massive gale of wind had arrived and the fire was gone.

Then Piccolo had landed in front of him.

...

That had been an interesting meeting, for sure…

Training had started the next day.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **\- LeviTamm**


	18. Chapter 18: Training Begins

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Next Chapter after this is the saiyans. Again, it's pretty much done now, and will be out over the next few days.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

Fighting on Piccolo's level was not at all like Gohan had expected.

It was so strange, and he hadn't even considered this aspect of fighting before.

He hadn't anticipated the subjective time acceleration that would be experienced while in combat against other Ki users.

It was clear now, that he had yet another ability. He could basically speed up his own perception of time.

He had noticed the effect before, but it hadn't ever really _clicked_. He had noticed it the first time when he had fought all of those people in that clearing a few months ago.

He had seen everything in slow motion back then, and could come up with complex plans faster than those people had been able to react to them.

From their perspective, it must have looked like he had an insanely fast reaction speed. But it was just slow motion. He had the time to consider his moves because of how slowly everything else was moving.

He was experiencing this again in his training sessions with Piccolo.

Piccolo was in the same slow motion time frame as him.

Gohan had effectively slowed down time, but Piccolo was still moving around at the speed of a normal human, totally unaffected by the change.

Which must have meant that Piccolo too, was slowing down his own perception of time. They both were, and as a result, they both appeared to be moving at reasonable speeds to each other.

…

Well, not quite both of them. Gohan didn't have a chance against Piccolo.

Because Gohan's ability to slow everything down, also slowed himself down.

Piccolo moved like an ordinary human in this slow motion state, which had to mean that he was moving at speeds comparable to a bullet to an outsider.

But Gohan was so slow in this accelerated world, in comparison.

Which meant that he could see all of Piccolo's movements in vivid detail, as if they were all happening at a reasonable speed that he could see, but when he tried to counter them, his body moved so agonizingly slowly.

The net effect was, strangely, that he could anticipate every single one of Piccolo's attacks, come up with multiple plans to counter them all, then being completely incapable of pulling any of them off because his body was just so slow.

He also had to concentrate heavily to keep the time slowed down to this extent.

A few times, he had dropped the accelerated time effect that he produced, just so that he could feel fast again, but when he did, he couldn't even see Piccolo moving around anymore. It was all just blurs and flashes, and sometimes even seemingly instantaneous movements.

It was crazy to think, in his opinion, that his mind could sort that all out at such high speeds.

Since he knew that biological neurons couldn't process information that fast, he knew that it had to be _him_ doing it.

Not his body.

His _soul_ had the ability to accelerate his subjective time. Which provided further evidence that he was not his body. His mind was like a software program that wasn't even run on the biological material of his brain all the time. It was on something higher up than that.

Or at the very least, his consciousness migrated to this other, higher tier substrate, every time he needed to fight.

He didn't know what it was though. And it made him wonder what his brain actually did, if he didn't need to use it to think. Probably all of the subconscious stuff, and all of the automatic scheduling for the chemical processes going on in his physical body, he figured.

Due to all of this slow motion combat however, battles took a long time to run their course to the people experiencing them.

He could be fighting Piccolo for seemingly hours at a time, and then when they stopped for a quick break, only a few minutes will have gone by in the outside world.

His whole perspective on combat had changed under these training sessions.

You didn't have to be strong at all, physically. Just coat your body in energy. You didn't have to have fast reflexes, just slow down time.

And it all happened so slowly to the fighters, and nearly instantly to any would be spectators.

It was just bizarre.

Piccolo wasn't faster than him. He could just move his energy around faster. He could focus on slowing down time a little better than him, too.

...

Another part that really threw him off, was the lack of pain in these fights.

In that slow motion world, as he would be fighting Piccolo, they would block each others attacks with a great deal of force, yet he'd barely feel a tap. He'd only really feel anything if his concentration on his energy slipped, or if Piccolo stopped holding back.

Because Piccolo definitely was holding back...

Gohan had a long way to go still, but he was improving rapidly. He could feel it.

Every single day, the spars against Piccolo either lasted a little longer, or Piccolo had to hold back a little less during them.

He would still be beaten into the ground at the end of every day easily, and he could certainly feel the effects of a battle afterwards, but he was noticeably improving.

And that's all that really mattered.

* * *

"That was some attack," Piccolo broke the silence, one evening.

The two of them didn't talk all that much. Piccolo gave him pointers, and shouted at him a lot, but neither of them liked small talk.

Gohan was currently lying down on the grass, looking up at the stars next to a crackling fire. Piccolo was seated in a meditative position a few feet away from him.

"Which one do you mean?" Gohan replied.

He could barely move by the end of a training day. Even speaking could prove to be a challenge after some of the harsher ones.

"The first one you showed me."

Gohan understood.

His laser. He should come up with a name for it eventually.

"Yeah... it's really just a prototype at the moment though. I still have to speed up the charge time."

He hadn't had any time to work on it since Piccolo had started training him.

"How long does it take?"

"A couple of minutes, at the moment. Too long to be practical."

There was a moment of silence.

"Tomorrow, we're going to start working on your energy manipulation."

"Alright."

Then there was silence again.

They had been at it for a few weeks already, and they hadn't touched Ki at all, really. Piccolo had focused on teaching him basic martial arts first.

But he was pretty sure he understood why they were starting now. He could feel that he wasn't going to get any better unless he could speed up his body in that slow motion world. And that took better control over his energy, he figured.

They hadn't touched flight yet either.

...

Gohan also hadn't brought up any of his experiments, his results, or the training he had put himself through already.

The only thing he had really told Piccolo was a quick run-down on why he had a house in the forest, miles and miles away from where Piccolo had dropped him off originally.

He had left out all his struggles for survival, the dinosaur he had lived in for a while, all the people he had killed, some of his ideas on how the saiyans might invade the Earth, his theories about Ki and magic, and the new results he had discovered after his initial series of experiments…

He also hadn't asked Piccolo anything yet either.

He wanted to see how that sword making technique was done, now that he had a better handle on his energy, and he sort of wanted to ask if Piccolo had really told Raditz about the Dragonballs at some point. But he hadn't yet.

Piccolo didn't seem like someone to answer those sorts of questions, anyways.

So he'd just sit back, learn, and get beaten up until he could stand up on his own in the meantime.

He might ask Piccolo those sorts of questions when he was strong enough to actually fight him on equal ground.

* * *

The two of them were sparring again.

Piccolo was attacking him from all directions, and Gohan was barely able to keep up.

He had had to switch to his bubble sensing vision technique to even see Piccolo anymore.

In the previous spars he hadn't even attempted to use it, figuring that it was incomplete and wouldn't work on someone as fast as Piccolo, but he really shouldn't have doubted himself.

His time was slowed down, his eyes were closed, and he could feel exactly where Piccolo was. It was actually more effective than using his ordinary vision.

' _I guess I just used it so much in the past that I've gotten used to it,'_ Gohan thought.

It was probably from all that practice inside that dinosaur. There had been no light at all back then, and he had spent a long time using that technique as his only way to see.

It was practically instinctive now.

He could tell that Piccolo was deliberately trying to attack him from his apparent blind spots, and while Piccolo was definitely still a lot faster than him, Gohan could feel where he was coming from and he was able to put up a much better fight this time.

He was still losing, though.

Just as he finished blocking another series of attacks, using some of the techniques Piccolo had drilled into him earlier, he felt something small rocketing towards him at high speed, from behind.

He couldn't tell what it was, but it was going at about the speed of a bullet. It was larger, but just as fast.

At least, he predicted that it was moving at that speed to an outsider. To him, it was moving at about walking speed.

He could dodge at these speeds however. He was a lot faster now than he had been in that clearing months back.

At the last moment, Gohan tilted to the left, just enough for the projectile to miss.

It skimmed past his right cheek, and continued forwards.

...

There were a lot of clues about how fast an object was going by watching its trajectory when time was slowed down like this.

Gravity was about 9.8 m/s^2 on Earth, which meant that an object in free fall would accelerate towards the ground at about that rate when you ignored atmospheric effects.

But when time was slowed down this much, and when things were moving this fast, that downwards acceleration appeared so slow that it was often negligible.

Thrown objects would move like lasers, here.

Leaping in any direction moved you linearly, in that direction, rather than on a parabolic arc trending towards the ground.

This slow motion world could be very accurately approximated linearly. As a world where gravity didn't even exist.

At the end of most of his attacks, he had to often pull himself downwards because gravity wasn't doing it fast enough.

...

Which produced really weird effects, on some occasions.

They could fight _sideways_ , for instance.

They could have entire exchanges of attacks and counter attacks while their bodies were parallel to the ground, and while gravity was pulling them sideways.

It was just a different world, here. With completely different laws of physics.

...

He could see at these speeds, and even dodge at these speeds, but only just. His body was only fast enough to dodge with the barest of margins for error.

Since he was so slow in this time frame when compared to Piccolo, he had to adopt a minimalist style. Every movement he made, could be matched by two of Piccolo's, so he had to be very efficient in how he fought to even stand a chance.

As a result, he always aimed to dodge by the barest possible of margins, and no more than that. Anything more would waste time that he would otherwise need to dodge or block the next assault.

But where had that projectile come from?

Abruptly, he expanded his energy bubble further out, to see the source.

Simply opening his eyes, and glancing in that direction would waste time, so he opted to just push his bubble sensing technique further out.

…

Two Piccolos?

There were two of them here. One was just standing outside the clearing they were fighting in.

And Gohan was fighting the other right now.

Abruptly however, the fight stopped.

From Gohan's slow motion perspective, Piccolo's body seemed to just freeze in place. Which indicated that Piccolo had left the time frame himself, and returned to the normal one.

...

Gohan quickly did the same, dropping his concentration, and letting the flow of time return to normal.

It was a strange experience. Sound didn't really work properly when time was slowed, so everything was either silent all the time, or everything generated extremely low frequency sounds that he could barely hear.

But when going back to normal, sound returned suddenly. And he heard all of these low frequencies abruptly shift to higher and higher octaves, until he could finally hear normally again.

When time returned to normal, for a few moments, he could hear the shockwaves of the previous battle echoing off the trees around them, and even the hills further out, as they bounced off of the environment around them before eventually dissipating.

Gohan glanced in the direction of the second Piccolo.

Sure enough, there _were_ two.

His sensing technique could not distinguish colour. Just geometric shapes, so all he had really been able to determine with it was that whoever had thrown the rock at him earlier had the same shape as Piccolo.

But they looked the same too. Was this some other sort of technique?

If it was, he could already think of countless applications for it. Both for battle, and for everyday life.

"So," Piccolo began. "You've learned how to sense energy signatures. That makes things a lot easier."

Energy signatures? Gohan had never heard of those before.

"Energy Signatures? What are those?" Gohan asked.

"Energy Signatures are a specific type of energy that is only given off by one person. Everyone has one that is unique to them. They are sort of like a fingerprint," Piccolo replied.

…

"You can measure that?"

Piccolo frowned at him, and narrowed his eyes.

"You can't? You fight with your eyes closed, yet it doesn't hinder you at all. In fact, you seem to fight better like that for some reason."

He continued.

"You were able to pick up on the energy signature of my double behind you, and the energy signature of the rock it had thrown at you."

"That is a skill that is actually surprisingly difficult to master, and since you have, I don't have to waste time teaching it to you."

That was actually pretty cool, in Gohan's opinion. But Piccolo had misunderstood his abilities, he was pretty sure.

…

"I see," Gohan replied. "But you're wrong. I don't know how to sense energy like that. I didn't even know you could do that."

He had debated the pros and cons of telling Piccolo what he was actually doing, but figured it could only help. If he could learn Piccolo's sensing ability too, it would only make his own vision that much more effective when he combined the two techniques together.

"What I'm doing isn't nearly as subtle. I've literally created a ball of energy so thin that it can't be felt, and so large as to encompass this entire clearing. I can feel every physical disturbance in it. I didn't see your clone at all, in fact. At least not initially. I felt the rock as it passed through my energy, though."

It wasn't subtle at all. It was a more brute force approach. He could intuitively understand where his energy was, and consequently, he could feel when it was moved around without his own interference.

"That's… actually pretty clever," Piccolo replied with slightly widened eyes. "I didn't know that it was possible to do that," he finished.

Piccolo seemed to think over the idea for a moment before continuing.

"It's pretty much useless though. It wastes too much energy, and everything that you can detect with it, can be detected without it with the right training."

' _I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that,'_ Gohan thought to himself. He wasn't going to say it out loud though.

He had actually developed a few new techniques that used his bubble sensing ability. Techniques that wouldn't work without it.

...

Like, for example, what happens when he ramps up the intensity of the energy bubble abruptly?

Then all of a sudden he has a spinning shield. It didn't even have to be very thick to be useful. It could produce the same effect as him just being in the eye of a hurricane.

Someone of Piccolo's strength could throw a punch at him, but they would have to take into account the circular wind that he had to travel through, and he'd have to correct for it. And then Gohan could just abruptly slow it down, or reverse its direction.

It wasn't as useless as Piccolo might think, even if Gohan hadn't worked out how to do all of those things yet.

And if what Piccolo said was true about this _new_ sensing ability, he would only be able to detect things with Ki in them.

But what about bullets? Or rocks that travelled at high speed that _didn't_ have any residual energy in them from a Ki user?

He had worked out the energy issue Piccolo had mentioned too, in fact.

As it turned out, energy conservation was very counterintuitive.

In his previous experiments, after calculating how much energy he contained, he had run into a problem that he had referred to as, 'the missing energy problem,' that his original theory of Ki didn't seem to explain.

The results of his conservation of mass experiment, had shown him that yes in fact, the food he was eating actually vanished.

The mass vanished, and no heat was generated, which would have blown a huge hole in thermodynamics if Ki and Magic didn't exist as other forms of energy. For thermodynamics to remain intact, it had to be the case that all of his food's mass energy had been directly converted into Ki and magic.

He had done the math, calculated the rest mass energy of the amount of food that had vanished using E = mc^2 , and noticed that the resulting increase of his Ki stores was three or four orders of magnitude less than what he predicted.

6.5 gigatons of TNT was a ridiculously high amount of energy that there was just no way he had access to.

Which left a huge amount of energy seemingly missing. Hence the name of the problem. But he had forgotten two important things.

The first was his magic energy.

Maybe he really did have that much energy inside him. And it might be the case that magic itself was simply very energy dense.

And it could be the case that he was using massive amounts of energy, simply directing those little balls of plasma around.

A unit of magic, the amount required to move a unit of Ki-turned-plasma around, could contain orders of magnitude more energy than the plasma itself.

Which actually explained an observation he had noticed in the past.

His dad liked to use large sweeping attacks that destroyed large areas of land. Which at first glance, seemed like a gigantic waste of energy.

Why throw around a huge bomb of energy, when you could compact it all down into a denser form, and use much less of it as a result?

It was like comparing a thousand pound foam block, with a steel pocket knife. Sure the foam was impressive, but the knife was not only easier to throw around, but it could punch through the foam without any difficulty.

But if magic was more dense than Ki, orders of magnitude more so, this was no longer the case.

If this idea was right, it was possible that large blasts of energy were actually more energy efficient than tiny focused lasers were. Because that concentrated beam of energy required more magic to create, even if they both used the same amount of Ki.

The theory fit his experiments too. He currently suspected that this was the main reason why he couldn't completely drain his Ki reserve with his own laser.

He was running out of magic energy long before depleting his Ki.

And this was also why he _could_ deplete his Ki reserve if he didn't try to focus the energy at all. If he just threw a ball of energy out and let it rapidly expand, undirected.

Every last thing he did with his energy required him to use both some amount of Ki, and some amount of magic.

Basically it all came down to one concept.

Concentrated attacks were more magic intensive, even if they used less Ki, and large scale attacks were more Ki intensive.

Since magic contained more energy per unit than Ki did, it was more energy efficient to not control the Ki-created-plasma, beyond necessity. Even if it meant using a huge blast on a small opponent.

Balance was the critical component there. To be the most efficient possible, he had to make sure that he didn't run out of either Ki, or magic, until the last possible moment of a fight.

Having Ki, with no magic left, or having magic, with no Ki left, was indistinguishable from having no energy of any kind left at all.

So he had to always aim to deplete _both_ containers simultaneously to make the most of his energy.

The second thing that he had to take into account with his solution to the missing energy problem, was the time delay.

When he ate his food, and then the food vanished, there was a delay before his Ki reserve filled up.

Which meant that the energy was still missing for a period of time.

And that had lead him to theorize on the existence of _third_ container of energy inside him.

He couldn't be _sure_ it was there, but it was the simplest answer he could come up with to fully explain his observations.

He had a third container of energy that contained a precursor form of energy to both Ki and magic. This type of energy, since he had no idea what to call it, he referred to as 'nameless stuff'.

Nameless stuff, was essentially the thing that most of his food turned into after it vanished, and was what was in this third energy container. And over a period of time, nameless stuff would be transformed gradually into both Ki, or magic, depending on which one was needed most at the time.

And this theory, crazy as it sounded, actually explained a few other unrelated things, which was why he was inclined to believe that it was likely to contain at least some truth to it.

It explained why warming up was important before a fight.

Another thing his dad always seemed to do, was play with his opponents, while significantly holding back. Another thing that made no sense to him at first glance.

But this theory, along with one other fact, explained it.

He had noticed that the rate at which Ki was restored, was a function of how much Ki he had left.

If he had a full or nearly full container of energy, the rate at which it restored itself was slow. If he had half or less however, Ki production was in high gear.

And that new Ki was being created from this third container of nameless stuff.

Warming up, was the act of deliberately wasting a small amount of energy from his Ki container, so that Ki production sped up considerably.

His body would freak out, thinking, 'we are running out of Ki and need more immediately!' and then nameless stuff would start to be converted into it.

There was some magic number then, according to the theory, the perfect amount of energy to waste at the start of a battle, to maximize the amount of Ki he had access to during the fight.

A so called 'perfect warm up.'

Having a container that wasn't full, but where Ki production was increased, would give him more energy to work with over the duration of a fight, then a full container would, right from the start.

And it was all because of the crucial fact that the fight would be over long before the nameless stuff container had fully depleted itself.

If a fight lasted x minutes, he only had x minutes of nameless stuff conversion time. So to optimize it, deliberately wasting a small amount of energy at the start, would leave him with more in the long run, because it increased the speed of the conversion, early on.

As long as that extra energy outweighed the energy loss at the beginning of the fight, it would be worth it.

He wasn't absolutely sure if this process worked on his magic container though, since he couldn't sense that one at all, and could only imply its existence because of its effects.

It wasn't like his Ki in that sense. He didn't have an intuitive understanding of how much magic he had left to work with. It would just suddenly run out abruptly, and he wouldn't be able to fight anymore.

He was actually still trying to figure out a way to properly measure it.

But all of this data had evolved his previous 'fundamental theory of Ki,' into what he called 'the triple tank theory.' Which was pretty self-explanatory. And with it, number five on his list, the mystery about the conservation of mass, had been solved.

There were also some possible routes to explaining his hidden power there too, but he hadn't flushed them out fully yet.

And it also made him reject this idea about wasting energy from Piccolo. Gohan's sensing ability may be a waste of Ki, but it sounded like this other one would be a waste of magic.

Which was worse, because of its energy density.

Magic was always the limiting factor for him too. More often than not, he'd run out of it long before running out of Ki.

...

He wouldn't speak up about it though.

He didn't know everything, and he could be wrong about a lot of his ideas. So he'd see where it went, and keep quiet.

"We'll work on it some other time then, since you can get by with that technique of yours for now. Instead, we are going to work on your flight." Piccolo continued.

"My flight?"

"Yes. Fights rarely take place on the ground. Whoever best fights in the air, is almost always the winner as a result."

Gohan had learned how to fly in the past, but he wasn't really all that great at it. So it would be an interesting experience in his opinion, learning how to fight in the sky from Piccolo.

* * *

The days went by, and they were essentially a repeat of the first few days of training out there with Piccolo.

He had gradually gotten a bit better at defending himself on the ground at first, and then when they started flying, Piccolo had wiped the floor with him with just as much ease as when they had started out.

The battles were agonizingly long, with the time acceleration, and he couldn't move by the end of them.

But he was pretty fast in the air now. At least, relatively speaking. Faster than 99.999% of all other people everywhere, but nowhere near as fast as any of the people that he happened to be surrounded by.

Not as fast as Piccolo, or his dad, or his dad's friends…

He was beaten bloody by the end of every fight.

But he had noticed the improvement over the sessions. His body was pretty good at repairing itself thankfully, and he was improving faster than he ever had.

Unfortunately, Piccolo wouldn't let him use any of his capsules, either. Not for his food, or for a bath, or really for anything.

He clearly thought that it was making him soft.

Another thing that he disagreed with Piccolo on.

There was a difference between being soft, and choosing to live a life free of inconveniences. At least, that's what he thought.

But what did he know? He was just some kid.

* * *

At the end of one particularly brutal training session, Gohan worked up the nerve to ask Piccolo a question.

If he hadn't been so tired, and hadn't lost all of his inhibitions from the beating he had received, he probably would have kept his mouth shut, but he said the words before he could think to stop himself.

"Hey, Piccolo," He began while looking up at the stars. He was lying on his back, and he couldn't move.

"What," Piccolo replied, sounding annoyed.

He always sounded annoyed.

He was seated a few feet away from him, on the other side of the fire, in his typical cross legged position.

"Why do you fight my dad?"

It had honestly never made any sense to him really.

There was a moment of silence.

"What are you talking about," Piccolo replied.

"My dad. You used to fight him right?"

"Yes. But that fight's not finished yet. I have to take care of these two saiyans first, then your father's next on my list."

…

"Why?"Gohan pressed. "I heard the story from my dad, at least parts of it. And I'm honestly curious about why you want him dead so much."

It would give him some insight into a lot of things.

Piccolo sighed.

"Your father and I have been enemies for a long time now. The fact that he happens to be dead right now hasn't changed that. Why that is, is none of your concern."

...

So, Piccolo had just brushed him off then?

Gohan sighed.

Maybe he should just drop the subject.

...

"My dad always told me that you wanted to rule the world. Like King Piccolo had. But I never really bought that. It seemed too childish to be believable."

...Or maybe he should continue on, full steam ahead.

Piccolo turned to glare at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gohan continued.

"The only way that could ever happen is by turning the entire world into a wasteland. Some humans would always resist, and you'd have to kill them. And the ones that didn't would secretly plot behind your back and would utterly hate you in secret."

Gohan spat out a mouthful of blood. He had tasted the iron in his saliva for a while now, but he couldn't really get it out. He had gotten used to the taste though, after these sessions.

"Ruling a world out of fear just doesn't seem very desirable. At the end of it all, you'd be the ruler of a bunch of sycophants, who kissed the ground you walked on because if they didn't they'd be killed. People who would rather be anywhere else."

Gohan hated how weak and raspy his voice must have sounded. It was always like that these days.

He continued on.

"And then the saiyans, and the saiyan's friends, and their allies, and all the civilizations out there amongst the stars, would turn to look at you… and they would find Piccolo. Leader of nobody, ruler of the desolate wasteland called Earth, and the only resident of a dead planet. And they'd laugh."

"As all the civilizations out there explored the universe, and looked for their place within it, you would be a tyrant, who ruled over all on this planet, sure, but who wouldn't even be a footnote to them."

"It's why I could never believe someone would try to rule a planet through fear when they knew that there were other planets out there full of incredibly powerful fighters."

"King Piccolo was one thing, because he probably never met anyone as strong as the saiyans before... but you have."

"And it won't end with these two saiyans."

"There will be others out there. If I heard right, Raditz had been part of an interplanetary army. Who is the leader of that I wonder? How strong are they? What if they decide to come to Earth next after learning that the people here were strong enough to defeat the incoming saiyans?"

"And revenge against my dad for killing your's doesn't make sense to me either. If my dad died, and I was in your position, rather than waste my energy trying to get revenge, I'd gather up the dragonballs and wish him back. And beat the hell out of anyone that tried to stop me."

That was the only other reason Gohan could come up with, for why Piccolo would be so adamant in his desire to kill Goku.

"My dad would probably even help you out with that, if you asked him. Revenge just seems to be impractical. Because then all of my dad's friends would start hunting you down for the same reasons you hunt them down, and you would just be dragged into another series of battles. It just doesn't seem like it will ever end, and nothing will be gained by anyone."

There was another moment of silence.

Gohan, still on his back, reached one hand up into the air in gesture that made it seem like he was reaching for the stars.

"Don't you just get… tired of it all? All the hatred? The burning need to kill my dad? Because you could turn around tomorrow, tell my dad that you were tired of hunting him and his friends down, and that you decided to move on to something else, and my dad would immediately forgive anything you may have ever done to him on the spot."

Gohan smiled.

"He'd probably try to be friends with you, though. So, I guess you'd have to deal with that."

Gohan let out a chuckle, which turned into a cough.

"The ball is in your court." He continued. "It's always been in your court. That fight literally ends when you want it to."

That's how Gohan always saw it anyways.

"I just don't understand, I guess. There's gotta be something more at the end, right? More than revenge? More than ruling the world?"

"But I'm just some kid, huh. Maybe I'll just never understand. I guess I just wanted to know what you wanted at the end of it all."

...

It was the most he had ever said to Piccolo at one time.

And he never heard another response from him before he finally passed out a short time later.

The last thing he remembered saying before falling asleep was a question.

...

"What do you really want, Piccolo?"

* * *

The training had continued the next day.

Piccolo didn't say a word about anything Gohan had said to him the previous day, and Gohan, picking up on the queue, decided to do the same.

Both of them pretended that it never happened at all outwardly... yet, Gohan's words echoed in the minds of them both.

...

They both went back to their unofficial agreement of not talking to each other for quite some time after that.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **\- LeviTamm**


	19. Chapter 19: Arrival of the Saiyans

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Hit a snag while editing this chapter. Took a few extra days to get it out as a result. This is also the last chapter in my backlog for this story, so I don't know when the next one will come out. It's currently being written, but I don't know when it'll be done. Especially with finals coming up in a few days.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

The sky blackened one day.

..

Gohan was inside his capsule house at the time, carefully fiddling with a mechanism inside.

There were tripwires everywhere throughout the house, and he was being very careful to not touch any of them.

Abruptly, Piccolo landed near the doorway.

"They're here."

Gohan finished what he was doing, and slowly backed away from the box.

All of the tightened wires were extending from it, and the slightest impact would set everything off.

"Alright." Gohan answered.

"What are you doing?" Piccolo asked.

A valid question, in Gohan's opinion, considering the countless steel wires extending in all directions.

"It's a bit hard to explain," he replied. "I probably won't even get a chance to use it at all, but think of it is an extra sort of trump card."

He continued.

"Whether it will even work is up for debate though. But if the saiyans are here now, then it'll be ready for the fight."

It was actually perfect timing, in his opinion.

Gohan finally turned, stepped out of the building, and capsulized it.

Then, intrigued, Gohan glanced up at the black sky, and watched as the storm picked up.

The dragon had been summoned.

Which meant his dad was being wished back.

...Which meant that his dad's training was either finished, or the saiyans were arriving.

Gohan reached out with his senses. He couldn't feel them yet, but he needed to assume the worst.

He sent out a mental command, and reached into his case of capsules while he was waiting.

...

A few moments later, two more Gohan's arrived in the clearing.

He threw the two of them a pair of capsules, one each, and watched as they opened them, and stepped into two seperate pressurized spacesuits.

...He had gone into town again a while back to print them out at a store.

The two clones finished putting on the suits, and Gohan threw one of them a third capsule. The clone who caught it, tucked it away into a sealable pocket, glanced up at him, and nodded.

...

"Go," Gohan gave the command.

The two clones took off into the air, and sped off into the distance.

...

The multiform technique had changed everything. He had gotten Piccolo to teach him it during his training, and once he had learned it, he had changed his opinion on how useful he would be in the fight with the saiyans.

Piccolo had shown him the technique, and what to do with his energy to perform it, and then after testing it out for a while, Gohan had gotten a pretty good understanding for how it worked, in theory.

It was the same principle as 'algorithmic magic materialization,' he was pretty sure. Which was another technique that he had gotten Piccolo to show him.

There were two types of magic materialization as far as he had been able to tell. There was the type that Piccolo could do, a much more robust and powerful version that let him materialize whatever he imagined, and then there was the limited version that Gohan had managed to learn.

And that version was _very_ limited, when compared to Piccolo's.

Piccolo could use the materialization technique instinctively. He could literally create things from scratch.

That was just something his species was capable of, Gohan was pretty sure.

Just like plants could conduct photosynthesis, and people couldn't, Piccolo could visualize and create whatever he wanted, and saiyans couldn't.

But, saiyans could sort-of-learn a much more limited version of that technique, by memorizing the algorithm.

It was a bit like giving a blind person directions, he figured.

He knew exactly what he needed to do with his energy to make a handful of very specific objects that Piccolo had shown him how to make, but he couldn't actually build whatever he imagined on his own.

Just as a blind person could be told, for example, to take this many steps forward, then turn right, and so on… Gohan could be told to manipulate his energy in this specific way, then rotate it like this, and then when they finished going through the list of instructions, they would both end up where they needed to be.

If he wanted to learn how to make a specific thing, at least at the moment, he would have to talk to Piccolo and get him to walk him through the steps for that thing, guiding his energy step by step. Which was totally inconvenient. Especially so, on more complicated objects.

And it'd be a different algorithm for every object. So he had to memorize a lot of steps.

After some experimentation with the technique, he had also learned how to control the shape of whatever he was making with a little bit of extra freedom, as well.

After learning how to make a basic fabric, for example, he had learned how to make his own clothes out of it by controlling the shape, as he was making it.

But he couldn't really do anything complicated with the technique yet. He just didn't have the time to fully explore it on the training schedule he had placed himself on. He really had no idea what he was even doing with his energy on an atomic level, either.

As curious as he was, he couldn't take the time to study it yet. _That_ realization had annoyed him a great deal when he had had to face it a few months back. He could build matter from scratch now, but the whole process was a giant black box.

Why did he have to manipulate his energy the way he did, to make those objects? What physical mechanisms governed the process?

He just didn't have the time to learn the answers.

...But just because he didn't know what was happening on a fundamental level, didn't mean it wasn't a useful technique.

And he was pretty sure that he was using a variant of this algorithmic materialization technique when he created a clone of himself.

His body just happened to be the object he was materializing.

There were a few extra bells and whistles going on in the multiform technique though, he was pretty sure. But that at least appeared to be the basic concept.

...But those clones were so useful.

The multiform technique allowed him to create copies of himself that ran on what he referred to as 'the principle of superposition.'

Which was pretty self-explanatory.

If he had five clones in total, including himself, no matter which four of those five that he chose to destroy, the last would always be the original him.

This was because of the way his conscious experience changed when the technique was performed.

The technique was absolute insanity to experience first-hand, and it nearly drove him mad with curiosity about how it worked, every time he used it.

When he cloned himself, his mind was essentially pulled outside of his own body and he ended up in a sort of black void.

Then there were these sort of portals that he could enter that allowed him to step into the shoes of any of his clones, and take control of their bodies.

Which raised a lot of questions.

All of their body's were real. They all had a beating heart, organs, and brains, yet every time a clone was destroyed, or ran out of energy, it would vanish entirely, leaving the last body as his real one.

Upon originally hearing about the technique, he had expected to be left with a bunch of corpses afterwards. Empty bodies with no consciousness of any kind inside. But that wasn't the case. They vanished for some reason and he had no idea why.

...

He could also just sit in that black void if he wanted to, and let his clones do whatever it was that they decided to do while he sat back and did nothing. They were just like him after all. They would always think and do the things that he would in the same situation.

They could all think independently, without his oversight. And the thought processes of his clones were identical as far as he could tell, to his own.

He was almost like a network administrator when he had clones in the world. He could see what every clone in the network was doing, how much energy they all had, and he could even telepathically communicate with them.

...But only after Piccolo had shown him how to do that particular technique. Telepathy wasn't an actual intrinsic aspect of the multiform, and it needed to be learned separately.

It was powerful, but had a lot of drawbacks. For instance, it split his _magic_ pool evenly amongst all of his clones. And since magic let him control his Ki, every clone would be limited in how well they could control their energy.

He did have the ability however, to distribute his _Ki_ between the clones however he wished. And after some practice, he could even transfer Ki between clones while they were active, and even if they were a distance apart.

All of his clones had distinct Ki reserves that collectively contained the original amount of Ki that he had possessed before cloning himself. And he could dynamically change how much energy each clone contained, freely.

When he had discovered _that_ seemingly minor ability, he had gone nuts with it. That ability was now central to his strategy for the fight against the saiyans.

Another downside in the technique however, was that at most one of his clone's Ki pools would recover itself naturally. That only happened when he was piloting that particular clone himself, too.

All of the others had static Ki pools that would only deplete over time.

It was an annoying downside, as he had originally hoped that he could speed up his nameless stuff conversion rate by having multiple bodies all converting it at once, by having multiple nameless stuff containers. But as far as he could tell, he only had one of these containers, and it followed him around as he body hopped from clone to clone.

For instance, he could get one of his bodies to eat a meal, and thereby increase his container of nameless stuff. But if he immediately transferred his consciousness to another clone, and destroyed that other body of his, the one that had just eaten the food, the newly acquired nameless stuff would still be available to him.

That container was linked to his soul, not his body. So he couldn't get all of his clones to eat vast quantities of food to fill up multiple of these containers.

He would have abused that mechanic thoroughly, if it had actually worked out that way, too…

Nonetheless… he'd have to make do without it.

...

So he could freely change how much Ki each clone contained, but not how much magic. Which was actually pretty restrictive.

If he didn't have the right ratio between those two types of energy, concentrated and intricate energy attacks wouldn't work properly.

But with the way he intended to use the technique, he could work around this problem.

...

Gohan pulled out another two capsules, and opened them.

A table, with a bunch of prepared food already on it, and his scale, appeared in twin puffs of smoke.

This was his final preparation for the battle.

He needed to maximize his single container of 'nameless stuff.' So he ate as much food as he could, while standing on the scale, and stopped eating the instant he noticed his weight begin to rise.

That indicated that the food he was eating was no longer vanishing, and was instead filling his stomach.

All of the mass that had vanished before that point, had been directly converted into nameless stuff by his saiyan metabolism. He didn't know how that process worked yet, but it did work. And since that effect wasn't observed in humans as far as he was aware, he had figured that it had to be unique to saiyans.

He stopped eating at that point, and no sooner, as he didn't want to be bloated for the fight.

With a full container of nameless stuff, he had a lot of backup energy that would gradually appear in his other two energy containers over the course of the battle.

...Energy that he needed to be converted into _magic_ though, not Ki.

He wanted his nameless stuff container to be an exclusive magic reserve extender, due to the imbalances between Ki and magic that his clones would suffer from in combat.

His multiform technique came at a cost. It used a lot of magic to keep going. As a result, keeping it up for long periods of time would normally take him out of the fight long before he ran out of Ki.

So he needed his magic container to be maximized as much as possible, and that meant that he needed his nameless stuff to be exclusively converted into magic, not Ki.

That was the only way he knew of to restore magic energy, at the moment. And it could only happen when his Ki container was always full.

...Which meant that he needed another way to recover any lost Ki energy during the fight.

His Ki container had to be full all the time, so that he wasn't wasting any nameless stuff on regenerating it.

And though at first glance, keeping his Ki container full during a life or death battle seemed impossible, he had implemented a strategy to do just that.

And that was what he had sent those two clones off to do...

* * *

High up in the air, two Gohan's were facing each other, each in pressurized suits.

Abruptly, one of them floated onto the back of the other one, held on, and then they suddenly began moving directly upwards.

...

The plan was to make it to orbit.

In order to do that, they had to reach speeds of about 18,000 miles per hour, something that could not be achieved while in the Earth's atmosphere.

Hence the spacesuit.

How fast a Ki user could fly was entirely determined by how quickly they could push the air in front of them out of the way with their energy, under normal conditions. That meant that, ordinarily, in order to fly faster, you had to use more energy, since the faster you went, the more air you would run into in a shorter period of time. Air that you would have to get rid of.

But if you were in a spacesuit, with a large supply of oxygen, and one that was pressurized, and you got out of the atmosphere entirely, where there was no air, you could just keep on accelerating unimpeded, regardless of how much energy you put out at any moment.

There was no air to fight against up there.

He had had to look up the positions of the Earth's satellites beforehand to plan a safe route to ensure he wasn't slammed by a satellite moving in the opposite direction, but he had already worked that out a few weeks ago.

In his tests however, during training, when he had tried to rehearse exactly this maneuver, he never had enough energy to make it to orbit with just a single clone when he had multiple of them in the world.

If he wanted to make it there with one clone, he could only make that single clone. Having any more than two bodies would divide his magic pool too much to make it.

He needed just over one third of his magic energy to make it there safely. Which meant he could either just make one clone, with half of his magic energy, or use the combined strength of two clones, collectively.

He had five in total, including himself, for this fight. And for all of his plans to work, he couldn't get by with any less than that.

So he had to use the same principle behind rocket staging.

The bottom clone would exhaust its energy reserves after making it out of the thickest parts of the atmosphere and after reaching a decently fast pace, and then the second clone, the one that hadn't been using any energy at all until then, would use its energy to complete the journey.

 _That_ clone had an altimeter and a speedometer to measure its speed and altitude, so it would be able to stop at the correct time, and place, with quite a bit of energy to spare.

It also had enough air to last a day or so, up there, but Gohan didn't expect the fight to last that long. And it didn't matter if that clone never made it back alive, either. If it died, it would vanish in a cloud of smoke, and as long as that wasn't the only clone of him left, Gohan himself would be just fine.

...

The reason for going into orbit at all was to initiate a pretty elaborate plan to constantly refill his Ki reserves.

To make sure that nameless stuff was not being converted into Ki, he had to make sure that his Ki container was always full.

And to do that, he would take advantage of his clones ability to transfer Ki to each other.

If the orbital clone happened to be carrying a huge ball of energy, it could periodically absorb it, and send it to another clone, regardless of distance.

This was because Gohan had discovered during his experiments that it was possible to reabsorb a ball of energy and reclaim it, as long as _he_ had been the one to create that ball originally.

He could form a ball of energy, thus depleting his reserves a small amount, and then pull that energy back into his own reserves afterwards, filling them up by that same amount.

There would be a bit of energy loss during the process, which meant that after doing this, he would have a little bit less Ki then when he had started out, but he could reclaim almost all of it so long as he could physically touch the ball of energy with his hands.

His clone in orbit would be doing this.

Over the past few months, Gohan had planned this all out.

He had decided to create a ball of energy that would work as a battery.

Every day, he would deplete his reserves entirely into this ball, and then when the saiyans arrived, he would periodically get a clone to reabsorb that energy and send it back to him as he needed during the fight, using the multiform's energy transfer ability.

Which meant that he had access to a lot more Ki than he otherwise would have.

He had been saving up energy like this for well over a month now. He'd depleted his reserves into the energy ball, then his reserves had recovered naturally, only for them to be depleted again the very next day by the same process.

This strategy was allowing him to effectively double the total amount of Ki he had access to, every day or so without him having to actually increase the size of his own Ki container.

...

But, this strategy also came with some obvious challenges.

He couldn't just create this giant ball of energy and put it down somewhere in the meantime. The moment he lost control of the energy, it would detonate.

It was also _heavy_. So heavy, that he couldn't carry it by himself anymore after just a few energy dumps.

So, he had needed to solve those problems somehow. He needed the energy to be weightless, and he needed a place to store it.

The weight problem was solved by going into orbit.

At that point, the energy would still be falling towards the Earth, so the ball would still have a weight technically, but he'd be moving sideways with it so fast that he was curving over the Earth at the same rate that he was falling. That way, he'd never reach the ground.

So, to solve the weight problem, he had to get the ball of energy into orbit first. Which would prevent him from needing to exert all that effort to hold it up.

But then there was the storage issue.

Where could he put the energy ball when he needed to store it? He needed a place where he could totally let go of his control over it too, so that he could eat or sleep without having to consciously focus on keeping it formed.

He couldn't just leave it in orbit. It'd slowly evaporate up there. And it was a massive waste of time and energy, having to constantly meet up with it again to initiate some sort of orbital energy dump.

Trying to match the orbit of another object that was already up there manually, from the ground, was a huge effort.

Orbital rendezvous were hard. He had tried them.

...

So he had put the energy into a capsule instead.

It turned out that he _could_ actually capsulize a giant ball of plasma. Which made sense, since it was just matter, but it was still a weird thing to try and do.

As long as he was in orbit when he capsulized the ball, and when he unsealed it, it wouldn't matter if the ball was too heavy for him to manipulate under normal conditions.

He didn't have to support its weight in orbit. All he had to do was keep it together. Which was actually very simple to do in comparison, when he wasn't trying to do anything complicated with it.

Every atom of the plasma ball was falling towards the Earth at the same rate, so he barely had to keep it together at all. It took almost no effort to pull off, no matter how big it was.

And when the ball was capsulized, he did not need to concentrate on it.

It was subject to the time freeze experienced by all things inside a capsule. It would not, in other words, degrade over time while inside.

It was technically unstable inside that capsule, though not for very long. The moment a Ki user stopped exerting effort to keep a ball of energy compacted, it would burst, after all.

And that applied to this energy ball as well. But from its perspective, it was only unstable for only a few moments at any time. Gohan would relinquish his control over it to get some rest, and all the time in between that moment, and coming back the next day to unseal it again for another energy dump, would happen in just a brief instant relative to it.

It would not be so unstable by that point, that Gohan could not bring it back under his control.

And that, for the most part, solved the storage problem.

He brought the ball of energy with him on his way to orbit, rather than having to meet with it while it was already there.

It made everything so much simpler.

...

So, after the bottom clone ran out of energy, and after the top clone made it into orbit, the orbital clone pulled out its capsule, the one containing the ball of energy, and just waited there. Floating endlessly above the Earth, watching it rotate, below.

The plan was to only unseal the energy when it was needed. The ball contained a lot of energy inside it now, and he did not want everyone on the planet to be able to sense it, especially not the saiyans.

And thanks to that clone-rocket-staging technique to get it up there in the first place, the orbital clone had a lot of energy left over to make it's job over the next several hours, easier.

It's magic reserves were nearly full, by his estimate.

* * *

The bottom clone, the one which carried the orbital clone into space, turned back around when he was nearly out of energy, and fell back to the Earth.

He let himself enter free fall, and gradually, as the ground got closer and closer, he began to slow down.

Eventually, after a few minutes of falling, he landed in a forest, far away from where the fight would take place, and hundreds of miles from his starting point, with barely any energy left, and then he waited.

...

This clone had been assigned a very important task.

He was the power manager.

The orbital clone would keep this clone's energy full, and this clone would be responsible for filling up the reserves of the clones on the battlefield.

This ensured that the orbital clone had as easy of a job as possible. The orbital clone would not have to calculate or measure how much energy to send any other clone. It would just have to top off this one clone's reserves and manage the energy ball.

That was all.

The power-clone then, would work as a battery, and would allocate Ki as needed to the clones on the battlefield.

It couldn't really do much else anyways, with its depleted magic reserve.

...

After a while, the power-clone took off his space suit to cool off. It was way too hot outside to keep the thing on.

All that was left for both clones to do now, was hide their energy signatures.

Hide, and wait.

They did not want to attract the saiyans to them.

* * *

A massive explosion went off in the distance. One that both Gohan and Piccolo could feel from where they were standing.

The saiyans had landed miles and miles away in a city, and had destroyed it immediately upon landing.

As the explosion was still in progress, Gohan raised a hand to cover his eyes from the light.

"The Dragonballs," Gohan stated in a calm voice, a contrast to the violent shockwave they were experiencing. "We'll wish them back with the Dragonballs."

A lot of people had died in that explosion, and Gohan had felt them all vanish.

"What are those two doing over there?" Piccolo asked himself.

"Hopefully, wasting their energy."

The explosion eventually died down, and the air was filled with an eerie calm again.

Gohan's senses were going off the charts though.

The saiyans over there were extremely strong. He could feel them very clearly even from where they were standing.

...

"You're ready, right?" Gohan finally asked.

Piccolo glared at him. "Who do you think you're talking to."

Gohan smiled, then started ramping up his energy.

He had a hunch that the saiyans would look for the highest power level on the planet when they arrived, and had a couple of strategies in place for when they did.

He had done a _lot_ of planning with Piccolo. Mostly at Gohan's own insistence.

Bolts of lighting started to appear around his body as he began to gradually power up. And the ground began shaking.

"Don't reveal too much," Piccolo advised. "Just enough for them to get the message."

Gohan, heeding the advice, dialed it back a little bit. He decided that his target to aim for was twice that of the second strongest fighter on the Earth besides Piccolo.

In their training time, both Piccolo and himself had far surpassed the power levels of the other fighters out there, and were in a league of their own.

"It worked. They are on their way here now." Piccolo stated.

Gohan dropped his concentration, and his power vanished.

That surge of power had barely taken any effort on his part at all, so he hadn't wasted any energy with it, thankfully.

But it was still more efficient for him to be the one to do that, as Piccolo did not have an orbital energy network set up like he did. Gohan could already feel his energy being replenished from his clones.

He had given his orbital clone a mental signal that it was safe to replenish the reserves of all clones in the network during the explosion earlier.

At the moment, his orbital clone was out of his own sensing range, which likely meant it was on the other side of the world. Because of that, he figured that it would be out of range of the saiyans's, as well.

Gohan and Piccolo then waited in silence as they felt the energy signatures of the two saiyans rapidly approach them.

"Thanks for everything, Piccolo," Gohan broke the silence. "Don't know if I'll ever get another chance to say that."

There was another silence, as Piccolo turned to look at him.

…

"Don't mention it kid. You were an excellent student."

* * *

Since his dad wasn't there yet, Gohan shifted his battle plan to stalling tactics. He wasn't sure that he could take these two on in a fair fight on his own. Even with all of his preparations.

Another minute or two passed by in silence, and then the saiyans appeared in the sky above them.

One of them was huge. He had bulging muscles all across his body, and was bald. Ironically, this was the saiyan with the least amount of power between the two.

The other saiyan was much shorter, and had a head of black spiky hair.

He was without a doubt the more dangerous of the two.

"So what do you suppose these two are doing out in the middle of nowhere?" The larger saiyan asked.

"I think they were waiting for us," The shorter one began. "Yes, I'm sure of it."

The two saiyans slowly began to descend to the ground, and with a barely audible tap, their feet touched the Earth.

Piccolo and Gohan both remained silent.

...

"So," the shorter one spoke up, after a few moments. "We meet at last."

"The pleasure's mine," Piccolo responded.

After another moment of silence, Piccolo started speaking again.

"I'm only going to say this once… leave this planet. This is your first and last chance to make it out of this alive."

"That voice... I see." The shorter one responded. "You're the one who defeated Raditz one year ago."

Both Gohan and Piccolo had discussed in detail the idea of those devices on the faces of the saiyans working as communicators. So it had been no surprise to either of them that they recognized Piccolo's voice.

In fact, a lot of Gohan's theories assumed that that would be the case.

He let Piccolo take the lead in these conversations for several reasons.

For one, these saiyans probably wouldn't take him all that seriously, and he wanted to keep his power level a secret until the last possible instant.

In fact, he was expecting these two saiyans to assume that Piccolo had been the one to give off that previous power surge.

The shorter saiyan continued.

"I'm sure Raditz explained it to you. Our scouters work as communicators."

"Huh," The larger one finally voiced his confusion. "The green one is from Namek right?"

"Yes," the shorter one replied. "He's from Namek alright. No wonder Raditz had such a hard time with him and Kakarot."

Piccolo was stunned at the revelation.

"I'm from Namek…"

Gohan had expected something like that to be true, so he wasn't really too surprised by it.

"You didn't know?" The shorter one pressed. "Well, what a surprise. Surely, you must have expected something before now. The green skin and pointy ears are a dead giveaway don't you think?"

There was another moment of silence.

"It was you who told Raditz about the Dragonballs. Now, tell us. Where are they?"

"Why do you want them?" Gohan suddenly interrupted.

Piccolo still looked to be reeling from the revelation that he was an alien, so Gohan had decided to intervene, himself.

He had a strategy for talking to these saiyans. Reveal information that they already knew to be true, and mislead them as much as possible everywhere else.

But to do that, he needed to know what they knew.

"Kid," the larger saiyan began. "It doesn't matter one bit why we want them. You have them, and we will find them. With you alive, or with you dead, it's your decision. Tell us where they are, or you will both be killed."

"Is that right?" Gohan responded, his voice laced with sarcasm. "So you mean to tell us that if we tell you where the Dragonballs are, you will simply take them, and let us live? You won't immediately turn around and kill us the literal instant you have them in your hands?"

He continued.

"The way I see it, you'll kill us either way. So why would we help you?"

The larger one growled. "Why you…"

"Enough, Nappa. He does have a point."

Gohan was testing the waters. He wanted to understand their personalities as much as possible. He wanted to see how they would react to some of things he planned on telling them. And with what he could tell so far, the larger one had a very, very short temper.

Someone who was willing to kill at the slightest implied insult. He had the thinnest skin that Gohan had ever seen.

' _So his name is Nappa then?'_ That's what the shorter saiyan had called him, anyways.

Gohan made a note of that. And he had a few ideas now, of how he could make use of the information he had gathered so far, later.

The shorter saiyan continued.

"You don't have a way of knowing that we will show you mercy if you comply. You'll just have to take our word for it."

"Well, we don't," Gohan's response was immediate.

"I want to thank you," Piccolo cut in before the saiyans could respond. "Because of you, I now know that I come from the planet Namek. But, this is my planet now. And nobody is going to tell me what to do with it."

"So back off!" Piccolo settled into a fighting stance. "We're not here to bow down to your demands. We're here to fight! So go ahead and do, whatever it is that you came here to do."

There was another intense moment of silence.

...

It was interrupted a few moments later by the sound of helicopter blades.

Gohan glanced upwards, and noticed that the noise came from a bunch of media helicopters.

This was clearly being broadcasted to the world, live.

They were way too close, though. And it appeared that the larger saiyan, Nappa, agreed.

Nappa charged up an energy blast and fired it towards one of the helicopters with a battle cry.

Gohan _could_ have intervened in that moment. The blast was slow enough that he could have intercepted it… but it would have revealed his capabilities to the saiyans.

If things continued to go south, he needed to keep himself hidden for as long as possible for his plans to work.

They'd be wished back with the Dragonballs later.

He watched as the blast connected with the helicopter, and exploded, killing everyone inside.

The flaming wreckage fell to the ground under the influence of gravity, and the other aircraft abruptly swerved and headed back the way they came.

Piccolo and Gohan both settled into fighting stances, as the flaming wreckage landed all around them.

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **\- LeviTamm**


	20. Chapter 20: Decisions

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Alright so as a quick disclaimer, since a commenter brought it up and it is a valid concern, I feel the need to say this:**

 **Things are going to follow canon in this fight until Gohan starts making changes.**

 **At that point, it will diverge from it so rapidly and completely that it will be unrecognizable from it. But until he makes those changes, there will be a lot of similarities because Gohan simply hasn't done anything yet. So please bear with me as I rehash some canon events a little in this chapter. Next chapter is where most of the truly significant changes will start happening.**

 **Which makes this chapter the final chapter where the timelines of this story and canon, will be this close to each other.**

 **I don't like following canon. I prefer to write my own sequence of events, but this situation at the moment is a bit like a time traveller being sent back to the past and waiting for his moment to change history. It would make no sense if things would be different before they have made any significant changes.**

 **Gohan's different mindset and training, does not affect Vegeta's plans from across the universe, until the effects of that training start to reveal themselves after they meet. He has not suddenly prepared new strategies to gather the Dragonballs in anticipation of Gohan's new mindset.**

 **Everything is identical to canon at this moment apart from Gohan, and Piccolo basically. With just a small handful of tiny details being different. Every other major change has happened in isolation, so they haven't affected the plot significantly yet. Events will play out as they had, until Gohan decides to make those changes happen.**

 **Which will happen very soon.**

 **I intend to take my time with this fight, so I decided that writing a little bit of canon was necessary.**

 **Hopefully that doesn't piss too many people off, but its understandable if it does.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

There were all of these little... _decisions_ that he was constantly having to make.

Should he intervene and save the people in the helicopter?

...If he did, he'd be revealing his hand too soon. He'd lose his element of surprise.

Maybe if he had known what the saiyans were capable of already, and didn't have to assume the worst case scenario about their strength, he would have intervened.

The Dragonballs had to be used later to wish back all the people that had been killed in that city earlier, anyways. What were a few extra bodies amongst thousands? Those people in the helicopter would be brought back at the same time with that wish.

...But that hadn't been his only option in that moment.

How about instead, during that moment, as Nappa launched his attack, should he have used that instant to strike?

...

He actually nearly had.

That saiyan had let his guard down in that moment, and Gohan probably had coin flip odds of taking him out in that instant.

Of killing him.

And there may not be an opportunity like that ever again.

...

But he didn't.

He didn't because that would also reveal his hand too soon.

He didn't know how strong that other saiyan was. The shorter one. And after killing the big one, the fight would have escalated immediately.

And if that saiyan was as strong as Gohan hoped he wasn't, both himself and Piccolo might have died shortly afterwards. Long before the other fighters made it there.

He could feel a handful of other fighters from around the world rapidly converging on their position. In all likelihood, they were his dad's friends.

So he likely had allies to work with. Decently strong ones at that. They didn't have to truly get started until everyone was there.

He also still had a few plans in place that depended on misleading these two saiyans.

This whole conflict might still end non-violently. Ideally, Gohan still wanted that to happen. Not because he was merciful or anything, but because there were too many unknowns, and he was not totally confident about his chances.

If he could spend even just a few more months or so, training…

...

And then there was his dad.

Should he try to stall?

Why was his dad even late to begin with? Why couldn't he sense him yet?

The power levels approaching his position right now, weren't his. Gohan knew this because he recognized them all. He had observed their progress from afar with his senses during the past few months of training.

Since he recognized them, they weren't his dad's because his dad hadn't been on Earth in that time.

So his dad was late. And that was a problem.

But he couldn't do much about it, so he'd just have to deal with the situation.

Dragging the fight out for as long as possible would buy time for his dad to eventually get there. But it would also waste his own energy.

He didn't know if his dad would be able to win, either.

It might just be better to assume that the fight would be over long before his dad even got there. That they were on their own.

...He basically had a choice in front of him.

Go all out and try to kill these saiyans as fast as possible? Which actually had a decent shot of working with some of his preparations in place…

But if he failed, he'd lose his element of surprise, and the saiyans would immediately see him as a threat and try to kill him right back.

...Or should he stall?

If he did that instead, the saiyans very likely wouldn't be in any rush to end things too quickly.

They had spent a year just travelling there after all. That took a lot of patience.

He also remembered Raditz. His uncle hadn't tried to kill his dad immediately at all, back then. He had taken enjoyment in dragging that conflict out.

Gohan actually hoped that these two saiyans would be like that, too. The longer this fight dragged out, the better their chances.

He could also take the extra time to observe the capabilities of his new allies.

He could figure out their weaknesses, and how best he could cover for them.

…

Gohan was actually leaning towards this option for the most part.

He wanted to conserve his own power for as long as possible, and let _them_ take on the brunt of the assault. Even though he was stronger than they were, nobody else but Piccolo knew this.

He had trained with clones all the time, so his power level was almost never unified in one place. Which meant that the other fighters likely hadn't sensed his full strength at all until his little energy burst earlier. And they'd likely think that that had been from Piccolo.

And he always made sure that during his orbital energy dumps, he was on the other side of the world from them, and out of their sensing range.

A double blind worked best here, in his view. He wanted his strength to be a surprise even to his own teammates.

Piccolo had actually given him the idea, and after hearing it explained, Gohan had to agree.

There were these little queues that a fighter gave off during a fight that could be read by a diligent observer.

If his teammates knew how strong he was, they might glance in his direction when they expected him to intervene at certain moments, or give off other subtle queues that they otherwise wouldn't have.

And things like that could be read by these saiyans if they were paying attention.

But if his teammates didn't know, they'd likely see him as just a kid. One that needed to be protected.

They'd take the brunt of the assault so that he wouldn't have to, thinking that they were protecting him, and the saiyans watching the interaction would conclude that he was obviously weak as a result.

That he wasn't a threat.

Because what kind of super strong fighter just sat back and watched their friends get killed right in front of them? They would think.

...Gohan was.

Death wasn't real. So they could all afford to die if it meant his strategies would play out in the end.

So if he relegated himself to a support position instead, he'd preserve this element of surprise throughout the entire battle until an opportunity arose.

...Then he'd only go all out if he noticed an opening that was too large to ignore.

* * *

"It looks like they aren't going to tell us where the Dragonballs are, Nappa." The shorter of the two saiyans began, as the flaming rubble from the helicopter settled into the dirt.

"Wanna bet?" Nappa replied, a malicious edge in his voice.

He continued.

"Alright! Lets see how strong you really are."

Nappa pressed a button on the side of his scouter and it started beeping.

"The kid's at 400, and the Namek is at a thousand. You fools! Do you really think that you can beat us with such puny power levels?"

"Hey Nappa," the shorter saiyan interrupted. "Take your scouter off."

"What?"

"It seems that they know how to concentrate energy and raise their fighting powers. These figures are most unreliable."

The shorter saiyan spoke as he dropped the device onto the ground.

"Hey, right. Good call. Now I remember. That pathetic loser Raditz let himself be fooled by all of their power readings."

Nappa dropped his scouter onto the ground, and then there was another moment of silence.

Piccolo and Gohan watched all of this without speaking. They were both settled into their fighting stances and waiting for things to get started.

…

Nobody moved for another thirty seconds or so, as the two sides simply stared at each other.

"Nappa," The shorter one broke the silence. "I believe it's time we had a little fun with them. Better yet, get those Saibamen out. There should be six of them left. They'll do."

Nappa laughed at the order.

"You're too much. You really know how to have fun."

Nappa reached into a pocket on the back of his armour, and pulled out a blue bottle.

"You're right, there are six."

"Maybe the Saibamen can persuade them to tell us where the Dragonballs are, huh Nappa?"

Nappa crouched onto the ground, laughing, as he started planting the green pills into the ground.

"Oh, I think they can arrange that."

Nappa finished by pouring a green liquid from the other side of the bottle on top of where he had planted them.

"There."

He threw the newly emptied bottle to the side.

The ground absorbed the liquid, and after a few moments, six Saibamen started growing out of the ground.

They grew fast. In seconds, they were fully grown, and started making these weird insect-like sounds. They sounded almost alien, in Gohan's opinion.

When the Saibamen were finished growing, they looked in Piccolo and Gohan's direction, and _moved_.

* * *

There were so many decisions to make.

Gohan could tell that he was riding along a very thin line.

There were countless futures arrayed in front of him. In each of which, he made a different decision. But in most of which, he made the wrong one.

If he slipped up anywhere along the way, he'd die. And so would Piccolo.

He had to get this right.

There could be no mistakes.

…

He was calculating everything.

Should he have said some of the things he planned on saying during that moment of silence earlier? Or should he wait until later?

...It was too soon, he had eventually decided. Some of those things would have gotten them angry, in all likelihood. Very angry. Later, but not yet.

So he had remained silent.

...Should he have intervened when they implied that they had reinforcements of some kind?

When Nappa had pulled out that bottle, he had been careless about it. These saiyans weren't treating them as a threat, yet.

In an instant, Gohan could have powered up, used one of his new techniques, destroyed the bottle, and done serious damage to the saiyan holding it, before anyone could have reacted.

...But it would tip his hand too soon. And escalate the conflict immediately.

He took a gamble that the Saibamen wouldn't be too strong.

It was actually almost beneficial that they were being summoned actually, in his opinion. It meant that the saiyans intended to drag on the fight for their own amusement.

Which bought them time for his dad to arrive. And the other fighters too.

...When he sensed the power of the Saibamen as they formed, he knew immediately that he had made the right call.

They were weak. So weak that Gohan could take them all out in seconds by himself, with some of his new techniques. Especially if he went all out in an instant, as a total surprise to everyone.

Piccolo could do the same, he knew.

During their training together, Gohan had actually managed to close the gap between them almost two months before the saiyans arrived.

He had reached the point where they were about equal in strength, then, in the remaining months, both of them almost became rivals.

They had been able to push each other far harder than they had ever managed to before.

And Gohan had made sure that Piccolo got just as much out of it as he had. He wanted that time investment by Piccolo to pay off.

Piccolo had shown him a new world of possibilities. And Gohan would never take that for granted.

He'd never forget that, and he'd make sure that it had all been worth it.

...It also seemed as if the two of them were on the same wavelength on how to proceed with the battle, too.

Gohan and Piccolo had _both_ sat by and allowed the Saibamen to form, after all.

Either of them could have stopped it with ease.

* * *

When the Saibamen abruptly charged in their direction, Gohan was a bit disappointed.

He had hoped that they would have waited just a little bit longer. He could sense one of his dad's friends closing in on the battlefield.

They were all getting _very_ close, but one of them was nearly on top of them, now.

Ideally, Gohan wanted to preserve his element of surprise until everyone arrived so that _they_ could do most of the work, while he waited for an opening.

But if the Saibamen attacked now, he might have to show his power.

...Wait, maybe not, he suddenly realized. He didn't have to immediately kill them all. He could deliberately lower himself to their level.

He could fight in a way so that he was exactly one step ahead of these things, and no more. That way, he wouldn't take any damage, he'd get a decent warm up, and the saiyans wouldn't suspect much.

The fight would drag on, and the Saibamen would still be alive at the end of it.

And as long as they were alive, the saiyans likely wouldn't intervene themselves. They were too busy just watching the action, to do that.

Making his decision, Gohan remained in his stance, and entered the slow motion world.

...

Since the Saibamen were moving so slowly compared to what he was used to, he didn't have to slow time down all that much to observe their movements.

He watched as they slowly crawled their way towards him. Relative to him, in this new time frame, it took them almost thirty seconds to get there… but before attacking, they changed directions at the last moment.

Confused, Gohan continued to watch as they started running in circles around them.

They ran, and ran, and started jumping around all over the place. All in super slow motion.

…

' _What are they doing?'_ Gohan thought to himself, after watching this all happen for a few slow motion minutes. Minutes which probably translated to just a few seconds in real time.

Eventually, one of them smashed a boulder nearby with a kick, and then they all took it as a signal to land in front of him and stop.

…

Gohan exited the slow motion world when they froze in place so he could hear if the saiyans were going to say anything. Sound didn't work in that world after all…

When time returned to normal, he felt the shockwaves from all the previous supersonic movements slam into him all at once, and echo off the environment around him.

...

It didn't hurt him at all, but it was one of the more annoying aspects of this type of combat, in his opinion.

It was one of the consequences of being able to slow down time that much.

That boulder for instance, the one that that Saibaman had just destroyed… Goohan had watched it explode in slow motion, observed the other Saibamen's movements for a while, considered their strengths and weaknesses, and had almost even forgotten about the boulder entirely, only for the shockwave to just then hit him, after dropping his time acceleration ability.

It took _so_ long for sound to get anywhere.

He'd be hearing shockwaves from attacks that had happened an eternity ago, relative to him.

The ground, in fact, was just now shaking from the tremor of that impact.

Nature just wasn't keeping up properly.

...

The six Saibamen settled into a formation in front of him, and started making those insect noises again.

Gohan was really just confused though. Why had they even done all of that? Was it supposed to intimidate him?

Maybe if he had had to face them a few months ago, he would have found them to be strong, but now, they were really just nuisances.

"This should be a pretty good match-up," The shorter saiyan stated. "These Saibamen seem spunky."

"Three each?" Gohan asked Piccolo. He wanted to clarify how they wanted to deal with these things. If Piccolo wanted to go take on all six of them himself, Gohan wanted to know.

"Two each," Piccolo replied.

Gohan looked up at Piccolo, confused for a moment, as those numbers didn't add up, but then he noticed Piccolo's grin.

Gohan grinned as well, when he extended his senses out a little bit further, and felt the first of his new teammates, arrive.

Two each, after all.

* * *

Gohan recognized him from _that_ day. He had met him on Master Roshi's island a year ago.

What had his name been again?

Gohan started replaying his memories from that day.

…

He had never been properly introduced to this person, but he had heard his dad call this person's name a few times.

 _Once,_ when they were skipping those rocks back on the island.

And _again_ , when Raditz had attacked this person with his tail, sending him back, crashing into the house.

It was Krillen.

"How 'bout some help?"

Krillen landed next to the two of them.

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" Piccolo replied. "But things are going to get intense. You might just slow us down Krillen."

"I doubt that. I've been doing a little bit of training on my own."

"So you have. I can feel a significant increase in your power level."

Krillen grinned, then took a moment to observe the battlefield.

"So, these are the saiyans then, huh?"

He paused.

"What the heck are those things?" He asked as he glanced at the Saibamen.

"Good question," Piccolo replied. "They grew them here a little while ago."

"Well that's just great. As if the saiyans by themselves weren't bad enough," Krillen complained. the sarcasm evident in his voice.

He continued.

"Man, Goku's running a little late, huh. We're going to have to hold out without him somehow."

Krillen then glanced at Gohan. He was about to speak up, but was interrupted.

"Oh look," the shorter siayan interrupted, catching everyone's attention. "Another one joined them."

"It makes no difference," Nappa replied. "Saibamen, I want to hear them all beg for mercy."

"Krillen!" A new voice echoed across the battlefield.

Just then, another two fighters landed next to Krillen and Piccolo.

Gohan didn't recognize either of them. He did recognize their energy though. He had been observing their progress for some time, after all..

Gohan could feel another person closing in on their position, as well.

They had all managed to arrive almost simultaneously.

"Wait for me!" Yet another shout echoed across the battlefield.

A few moments later, another fighter that Gohan didn't recognize arrived.

He was wearing the same uniform as Krillen, though. It was the same colour as what his dad used to wear all the time. Mostly orange with a little bit of dark blue thrown in.

These were his new allies?

Gohan had never met half of them. He had never even seen a triclops before. Though he had read about a bit about them.

He didn't know what the little one was either. He looked like a mime, with that get-up. Was he a human?

Gohan had thought that he'd be the shortest person here. But the mime was actually a pretty close candidate for that position.

"Hey, you guys!" Krillen greeted them all cheerfully. "It's great to see you again! We could really use the help."

"So these are the saiyans then, huh?" Tien asked. "Looks like they brought some friends along for the ride."

"Apparently, they grew them here," Krillen replied.

"What?"

"I have no idea. I never actually saw it happen. Piccolo told me earlier."

"They were grown here? That's a new one," Yamcha stated.

"Yeah, no kidding."

Gohan stood by and simply listened to the group of friends converse.

...He felt almost out of place now. Awkward, even.

He had no idea who any of these people were. He had watched their powers grow from a distance, and that's all they had really been to him until now.

A bunch of power levels that would one day join him in the fight against the saiyans.

But they were people. They had personalities, dreams, goals… they laughed, and had fun…

It made him question a lot of his current plans.

His whole strategy utilized them as tools, essentially. It felt almost dehumanizing.

...

He was going to have to keep his distance from them, he quickly realized. He couldn't treat them as people if he wanted to win, so he couldn't really treat them as friends, either.

They all had a common goal, and he would try to ensure that they would make it out of the fight alive, but mostly as a favour to his father. To be totally honest though, from what he could sense, if they were all wiped out, his chances of winning would still be roughly the same as if he were on his own with just Piccolo.

They were useful, sure, but not because of their power levels. They were useful because they were going to provide data on how these saiyans would fight.

…

These people weren't his teammates after all, he concluded.

There were three parties involved in this conflict.

Piccolo and himself, these four fighters, and the saiyans.

Two of those groups were allies, but there was no true connection between them.

...Gohan wouldn't be surprised at all, if all four of these people died before either himself or Piccolo truly got serious.

He needed to prepare himself for that possibility.

* * *

"Look Nappa, now it's six against six. Their warriors against our Saibamen. How perfect. This may just prove to be interesting after all."

Nappa laughed.

"I can't wait."

The four friends halted their conversation immediately, and got serious at the proclamation.

"Gentlemen," Vegeta began. "How would you like to make a match of this and fight our soldiers one by one?" He offered.

It was a perfect scenario, in Gohan's opinion. The saiyans were acting as he had predicted so far.

He shared a glance with Piccolo.

…

They were on the same wavelength. That was good.

"Well? Answer." Vegeta commanded.

"If that's how you want to do it then that's fine by me." Yamcha agreed.

"Yeah! This is perfect. We can buy some time for Goku to show up."

"I'll go first," Tien stated. "I'm not afraid of these little creeps. It'll be a good warm up!"

Nappa laughed.

"That's the spirit! Fresh meat for the grinder! But just wait, you won't be so cocky when you see what these 'little creeps' can do."

Tien stepped up and settled into a stance as he waited for his opponent to step forward.

"Be careful, Tien," the little mime advised.

 _So the Triclops is named Tien then, huh?'_ Gohan thought to himself. Since he hadn't been introduced to anyone, he was having to learn everyone's names through context.

Tien approached the Saibamen, and settled into a stance a few meters away.

The group of Saibamen continued making those insect like noises in the meantime.

After a few moments of this, Tien spoke up.

"A lot of noise, but no volunteers."

Vegeta frowned, and glanced towards one of the Saibamen.

"Alright, you go," he commanded. "But don't hold anything back. Got it?"

The Saibaman nodded in acknowledgement, and stepped forward.

Tien and the first Saibaman faced off, and there was an intense moment of silence.

...A silence which was again, broken by the sounds of helicopter blades as _another_ group of news helicopters approached the battlefield.

Gohan pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.

He didn't mind the interruption, but it seemed like such a waste of human lives. Didn't they see what had happened to the last helicopter that got too close?

Gohan could already predict what was going to happen in a few moments and again, he debated whether or not he should stop it.

...It was a relatively short internal debate, and he decided quite quickly that he wouldn't. They'd be wished back to life with the Dragonballs just like all the rest.

Sure enough, as he predicted, a few moments later Nappa charged up another energy attack, and with a battle cry, shot down the helicopter.

As the flaming wreckage fell to the ground around them once more, Nappa started speaking.

"Good! No more distractions! Now what do you say we get this fight started?"

* * *

Gohan stared at the fighters, his disbelief slowly rising.

...

 _Is this how fights usually start?'_ Gohan thought to himself.

The two of them had just been staring at each other for the past five minutes or so.

Neither the Saibaman, nor the triclops, had made a move yet.

It was bizarre.

If Gohan had been in this fight, it would have been over already, long ago. He never allowed long drawn out silences to occur like this unless they were beneficial to him.

' _I suppose they_ are _buying time for my dad to arrive…'_

But still. This was almost annoying to watch. Seeing them both waste so much time staring each other down.

His fights with Piccolo never went like this. They had been rapid, full of action, and without pauses of any kind.

Not at all like the stalemate he was watching unfold agonizingly slowly, in front of him.

…

The Saibaman eventually made the first move.

As soon as it did, Gohan entered the slow motion world so he could watch the fight.

All sound ceased.

The Saibaman charged at Tien at an annoyingly slow pace in the new time frame. He watched the creature make its journey over the course of about twenty seconds or so.

Tien countered with a directed energy attack.

He had created a ball of energy, quickly wrapped it around the Saibaman, locked it in place, and ramped up its kinetic energy. Changing the direction of its motion vector in the process.

The Saibaman was suddenly moving in the opposite direction. The attack had done almost no damage to it physically, but it created an opening.

It basically looked like it had been hit by an invisible bus, or something. The way it was sent rocketing backwards like that…

The Saibaman landed, and charged again.

Abruptly, the top of its head split open and Gohan saw something white flash from inside it.

…

He narrowed his eyes and slowed down time even further to observe.

Both of the fighters in front of him slowed to a crawl to Gohan's senses.

Was this some sort of special attack?

Gohan watched the head split open, and a white liquid started spraying out.

Gohan's finger twitched, and in an instant his bubble sensing technique was active.

He wrapped the Saibaman with it and focused in, on as deep a level as he could manage.

He zoomed in on the creature's head, and felt the biomechanical components shift around as the Saibaman's attack took place.

He observed as a fleshy compartment inside the creatures head opened up, revealing a pool of liquid.

It was segregated from the creatures brain from what Gohan could tell, so the liquid was probably corrosive. Or had some other inherent danger to it.

But the flap of flesh that opened… the valve, for lack of a better word, was thin. Very thin.

It was a glaring weakness in the structure of these creature's bodies, he realized.

With a precise application of Ki, he could easily destroy it without them even noticing. Killing them almost immediately by their own acid from the inside.

Gohan expanded his energy bubble further out, and encompassed the remaining five Saibamen in the brief window of time he was stretching out and observing.

He located the same flap of flesh in the heads of each of them.

They were not on guard, these Saibamen. They had the typical defenses in place that Gohan would expect, but not much else.

He could not destroy their brains outright with his energy, for instance. Not unless he got serious, but everyone would notice the spike of energy if he did. The Saibamen had their own Ki protecting it. He would have to overcome that energy if he wanted to destroy their brains himself.

But if he concentrated his attacks on that tiny region, then he could.

The pool of acid was sitting in a container above the creatures brain, and there weren't as many Ki defenses in place protecting it, since it was meant to be opened up at a moment's notice.

It was inefficient to constantly have to pull Ki away from defending that acid container in order to start spraying it out, so there wasn't a lot there to begin with.

It used too much magic to pull it off. And that was the main reason why biological abilities like that were pretty much useless at this level of combat.

That flap was unguarded.

It would be so easy, Gohan realized. In an instant, relative to them, he could lash out with his energy, rip open this piece of flesh inside each of their heads, and watch as their brains fried from the inside out.

He could pierce the skin on the skull, expose the pool of acid, and punch a hole into the base of it, allowing gravity to pull some of it down onto the thing's brain.

Hitting that thin piece of flesh would be much less energy intensive then burning their brains out directly with his own energy.

In fact, he could probably do it without anyone here even noticing, at all.

…

He wouldn't though.

It was a waste of magic. Concentrated attacks like that were magically intensive, and he needed to conserve that form of energy.

He had unlimited Ki to work with, essentially, so his only bottleneck was magic energy. He should stick with his original plan, and conserve it as much as possible.

He should stick to large scale energy attacks that do not require much effort to control.

He'd waste a lot of Ki with them... which wasn't actually a problem at all. He had a Ki network set up to charge back up.

Gohan refocused on the Saibaman currently battling the Triclops.

...Maybe he would do it once, on one Saibaman only, but only if he ended up getting a turn in this competition of sorts…

Gohan watched as the acid spilled out of the Saibaman's head and headed towards him.

The Triclops had dodged the attack, and since Gohan was directly behind him when he had, it was now approaching him.

It wouldn't hit however. After some careful observation, Gohan was able to estimate the spread, and the range, and he was able to calculate that it would miss him by a foot or two.

It would shoot past his left shoulder and continue on.

It was not worth the effort to dodge.

Gohan sped up time again, back to the original rate he had been observing the fight with.

It was still too slow for sound to exist, but he could at least watch the fight unfold again.

Gohan idly noticed the other fighters jump out of the way of the acid, and as he predicted, the acid missed him by a small margin.

Since he had seen it coming, he didn't even flinch from the near miss.

...If he had been a good actor though, he would have thrown on a surprised or frightened expression so that the saiyans would think that an attack even as weak as that, was actually a danger to him. Further demonstrating how weak he apparently was.

He wasn't a good actor though, so the point was moot, and he didn't even attempt it.

The potency of the attack surprised him however. That acid was strong. Probably stronger than any acid ever discovered on Earth. It burned a hole in the ground next to him, almost immediately. Digging a trench into the rock.

The fight ended almost immediately after that.

Tien had charged once again, and struck the Saibaman down into the dirt.

The creature landed in a heap on the ground, and Tien landed and froze in place, indicating that he had left the accelerated time frame.

Gohan followed suit, and sound abruptly returned.

...

That entire fight had probably only lasted about five seconds or so, if he were to take a guess. That long to an outsider anyways…

It had appeared to last a few full minutes to him, however.

"What? Impossible!" Nappa declared.

Krillen and the little mime cheered at the victory.

Now all that needed to happen was for Tien to deliver the killing blow while it was down.

Gohan's eyes were locked onto the creature's fallen form.

"You're the best, Tien!"

Tien sighed and… turned around?

Gohan felt his eyebrows rise in disbelief once again, as he watched Tien start walking back towards his friends.

He had just turned his back on his opponent, and was letting him recover.

...

That was a dangerous mindset to have.

Gohan narrowed his eyes, made a note of that, and realized that _he_ was likely going to have to be the one to kill these saiyans himself, since it would appear that nobody else here would.

Not if they thought the fight was just over, when their opponent was lying on the ground.

His 'teammates' were not killers. None of these people were.

It was truly down to himself and Piccolo wasn't it?

"Thanks," Tien replied.

"Looks like you got hold of a weak batch, Nappa."

"No! They're all good. These are the same ones that survived that crazy battle on Tradick! He should've won! His power level is 1200! All of these Saibamen have the same fighting power as…"

He paused.

"...As who?" Vegeta prompted.

"As… Raditz."

There was a moment of silence.

"Now do you see my point?"

"Well, I think so…"

"Do you?" Vegeta laughed. "Well, don't strain yourself, just leave the thinking to me from now on."

"Uh, Tien," The little mime spoke up. "That one's getting back up."

He pointed to the Saibaman that was slowly getting back up to its feet.

Gohan was wondering when someone would point that out. He had no idea why the thing was even still alive. If he had been the one to fight it, he would have killed it the instant the fight was over.

Tien spun around, surprised, and settled into another fighting stance.

Abruptly, Gohan felt the shorter saiyan's power level spike dangerously.

In an instant, Gohan was in the slow motion world and time was almost _stopped_ from his perspective.

 _That_ was a lot of power, and he wasn't sure what the saiyan was going to do with it yet.

With his bubble sensing technique however, he was able to determine that the siayan was not aiming at him, or any of Gohan's temporary allies.

He was aiming at the defeated Saibaman.

' _So that's how it is then…'_

No mercy, even for their allies.

Gohan left the time frame again.

The Saibaman exploded an instant later as the attack hit.

The spectacle produced an astonished silence.

Even Nappa appeared to be surprised by the sudden attack.

"Vegeta, why?"

' _So the shorter saiyan's name is Vegeta then?'_

"He wasn't of any use to us anymore."

"I know, but… he was… alive."

There was another moment of silence.

"I… I don't… understand," Nappa finished.

"It would have been pointless to allow him to continue, Nappa. He was losing. Which leads me to believe that he wasn't trying his hardest."

Vegeta glared at the other Saibamen.

"I specifically told him to not hold anything back."

* * *

 **A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.**

 **\- LeviTamm**


	21. Chapter 21: Interference

**Disclaimer: I don't own DragonBall Z in any sense. I do not make any profit from writing this.**

 **A/N: Let me first start by thanking TheRangerBoy for helping me out, by being a beta for this chapter.**

 **This is also where the first deviations from canon start happening.**

 **\- LeviTamm**

* * *

"So," Vegeta began, "Who's going next?"

There were a few moments where nobody said anything.

Evidently, the fact that Vegeta had just killed one of his own allies in cold blood had silenced the other fighters.

...And that hesitation to answer was a little worrying to Gohan.

If nobody stepped up, would the saiyans try to initiate a free for all?

That would be annoying to deal with, no doubt.

He needed more time for his dad to get there.

If he had to, he would volunteer to go next himself.

Showing a little bit of his own power was better than escalating the conflict, in his view.

"Alright! If no one steps up we'll have a free for all!"

"No," Krillin said quickly. "I'll go next!"

"Hold on, Krillin," Yamcha cut in.

"What's up?" Krillin asked, after turning to face his friend.

"Let me go, would ya? I'm really anxious to show these guys what we're all about down here on this planet."

"That's great, but I've got this one okay?"

"You've already been wished back to life with the Dragon Balls once. I haven't. So if anything happens at least we know that I can be revived."

Yamcha started stretching.

"Sit this one out for me Krillin. You'll get your chance. Don't you worry about that."

"Okay," Krillin accepted, hesitantly. "He's all yours."

Nappa laughed.

"How touching? I'm all warm and tingly. Now go kill him!"

Another Saibamen stepped forward, and Yamcha settled into a stance.

"Alright, let's get this thing over with."

* * *

Yamcha charged towards the Saibamen, and Gohan entered the slow motion world as the fight began.

They immediately engaged in hand to hand combat, rapidly launching themselves across the battlefield.

As soon as Gohan saw that happen, he settled himself in for a long fight.

This wasn't like the fight that Tien had fought earlier.

It was likely that that Saibamen had underestimated how strong the Triclops had been and had been caught flat-footed. Which had resulted in a quick defeat.

But this Saibamen wasn't making that same mistake, and was holding his own considerably better than his former comrade.

It was also possible that this Saibamen just didn't want to be killed for being a disappointment to the saiyans as well.

...Everyone in the clearing had their eyes and senses locked onto the ensuing battle.

The first series of engagements lasted quite some time, as both fighters seemed to mostly just be testing each other's defences.

But it was hardly interesting in Gohan's opinion. The Saibamen was weak, and so was the person in orange. They weren't even doing anything interesting either...

Just hand to hand martial arts essentially, for several minutes.

There hadn't been any useful pieces of information revealed in the fight just yet. All that was evident so far was the speed and relative skill of each fighter.

Compared to his own spars with Piccolo, this fight so far was about as interesting as watching two animals fighting in the woods somewhere...

Since the fight was unlikely to reach an intensity that he himself would find threatening, Gohan allowed his senses to expand over the entire battlefield.

And it was unnerving.

These two saiyans were like stars.

Their power level was terrifying to experience first hand. Even just passively feeling it the way he was doing right now.

...They weren't very far away from him physically, either.

Gohan knew just how abruptly an experienced Ki user could summon their power and attack, if his own skill in doing so was anything to go by.

He could himself, at any time, power up and attack the saiyans probably faster than any of the other fighters apart from Piccolo and the two saiyans themselves, could react.

And by that logic, these saiyans had to be capable of that too.

This fight was literally of no consequence to them. The four of them, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta and Nappa. To all of them, it was pointless.

At any time, either of these two saiyans could interrupt the fight, and kill all four of Gohan's temporary teammates, before any one of them could even notice what had happened.

From their perspective, his teammates', they'd be watching the fight in one moment, and then there would just be blackness in the next. There would be no warning in advance, as the attack would have happened too suddenly for them to have a hope of seeing.

...

It reminded him of a bunch of insects.

These four temporary teammates of his were undoubtedly among the most powerful fighters that the world had ever seen, but their strength counted for nothing here.

The only people that even mattered at all were the two saiyans, himself, and Piccolo.

Everyone else were like insects in comparison.

That was what this situation seemed like. He was watching a bunch of insects fighting each other and pretending that it was important.

And so were the saiyans.

Gohan himself was hoping that these insects would bite and sting his opponents, irritating them just enough to either create an opening for him to strike, or to draw out some information on how the two saiyans fought.

...He was going to fight his real opponents in a room full of mosquitos basically, but he had the advantage of having insect repellant. The mosquitos wouldn't try to bite him, only his opponents.

It was a minor advantage, but one that he would happily take, regardless.

"Oh no you don't!"

Yamcha's shout abruptly cut off Gohan's train of thought.

A bright light flashed, as Yamcha charged up an energy attack, and fired it into the Saibamen. Planting the creature firmly into the ground.

And that was pretty much the end of the battle.

All he had to do was finish it off, which to be honest, Gohan was fully expecting the fighter in orange to not do. Even after seeing what had happened with Tien earlier.

Gohan was pretty sure that the man just wasn't a killer.

"Yeah!" Krillin cheered along with the other spectators.

Yamcha landed in front of the crater containing the Saibamen, and glared down towards it.

...Was Gohan wrong? Was the man in orange going to actually deal a killing blow?

After seeing the man pause though, Gohan figured that he wouldn't.

Gohan's finger twitched, and his bubble sensing technique activated.

With it, Gohan could clearly feel the rise and fall of the Saibamen's chest, despite not being able to see it with his own eyes.

It was still alive.

Actually, it seemed to be perfectly fine from what he could tell. Why wasn't it standing up again?

"That's two," Nappa.

There was another intense moment of silence.

...And then Gohan almost felt his eyebrows shoot into his hairline as he saw the man in orange, his teammate, completely drop his guard and spin around to face his friends.

He started gloating.

...Gohan tuned him out immediately.

The man was about three meters away from his downed opponent... An opponent that looked to be playing dead.

An alarm went off in Gohan's head, and a hypothetical scenario flashed before him.

...

If the Saibamen had noticed the man's carelessness as Gohan had himself, it could have taken that last hit on purpose to make the man in orange drop his guard.

If that was true, it worked, and literally any moment now, the Saibamen could launch himself out of the crater for a surprise attack.

And now that the thought had crossed his mind, it stuck, sending Gohan's mind whirling.

...

When he made his plans, he usually assumed that the worst case scenario would occur.

So, by that logic, he would make the assumption that the Saibamen was going to do exactly what he had thought it would, and deliver a surprise attack.

The worst case scenario was that this attack would not only be successful, but it would be fatal.

It was unlikely that anyone else but Piccolo or himself, could stop it from happening, as everyone else was a good distance away from the man.

So with that in mind, he would make that assumption.

He would assume that moments from now, the Saibamen would attack, and kill Gohan's temporary teammate.

Now, what should he do about it, if anything?

He could stop it, but it would tip his hand, and would attract everyone's attention to him potentially derailing a few of his future plans.

It was a gamble.

The man wasn't important in the grand scheme of things from what he could tell.

...Was it worth it? Was that lost element of surprise worth this man's life?

Well, maybe it wouldn't happen still. Maybe he was just overthinking things again.

Gohan glanced at Vegeta out of the corner of his eye, and noticed the saiyan suddenly smirk.

Gohan's mind went into hyperspeed.

...

It was going to happen. That was not the expression of a person who had just lost at something.

The man in orange was about to die, because the scenario Gohan predicted was about to play out in front of him.

...For a moment though, a malicious thought crossed his mind.

It was what this man deserved.

These people needed to know what was at stake here. If you drop your guard, you're going to die.

Maybe he should let this man die to emphasize that?

Three temporary teammates that had learned this lesson were better than four temporary teammates who had not.

The Saibamen twitched, and launched itself into the air.

...

For a brief moment, Gohan went all out.

He accelerated his perception of time to the utmost, and everything froze.

...

From his new perspective, the Saibamen was making millimetric progress towards its target, while the man in orange slowly spun around in surprise.

Gohan had predicted that this moment would happen, so he had been able to sort of catch this moment of time and stretch it out as it happened.

There was this lurching feeling in his chest that he just couldn't shake.

He knew logically that letting the man die wasn't really of any concern. As the man had said himself earlier, he could be revived with the Dragon Balls at a later date.

But it just felt like Gohan was going to lose something if he let it happen. Lose a piece of himself.

...This man was his dad's friend.

One of his closest ones, at that...

He could see the image of his dad's face in his mind, now.

...

Dammit.

What was he even thinking?

Was he seriously even considering that this was an option?

How far had he fallen?

It wasn't even that great an advantage, all things considered. His element of surprise...

Even if both of these saiyans knew exactly how strong the body he was inhabiting was, they still wouldn't know about his Ki battery. Or about his clone network. Or about the handful of other preparations he had taken in the meantime.

Even if they knew how strong he was right now, immediately saw him as a threat and attacked... he wouldn't lose all that much in terms of advantages. He had so many surprises in store, that losing one was unlikely to change the outcome of the fight one way or the other.

...

He had honestly expected to come to this battlefield having to go all out from the start.

Because he always assumed the worst case scenario, he assumed that the saiyans would be like him.

That they would be the types of people to always consider the optimal move in every scenario, and attempt to kill any resistance as quickly as possible.

He had expected that, and prepared for that.

By assuming the worst, he could only ever be pleasantly surprised.

The fact that they didn't do that though, that they had instead taken a more relaxed approach, deciding to grow those Saibamen and drag things out unnecessarily…

That had been a bonus.

It had granted him the ability to hide and use the good grace of his teammates as a shield, until an opening was created.

...But this man was a person, not a power level.

And he really didn't want to have to face his dad, knowing that he had let his friend die.

He couldn't do it.

Intercepting the attack would teach these people the same lesson anyways.

He had been plotting and scheming all this time over an inch of ground that hadn't even been his at the start.

The saiyans had given him the ability to hide himself for free at the start of all this, so he should be willing to give it up for free too.

...He'd take the hit.

Gohan chose to strike in that moment.

* * *

There was an explosion of noise, and a flash of light.

The impact had been so intense that it shook the ground, and it took about thirty seconds for everyone to finally recover from it.

When the dust settled though, the Saibamen was simply gone. There were no remains of any kind. No blood, no corpse… nothing.

...Gohan immediately noticed when everyone inevitably turned to look at him in surprise.

…

He had made a mistake, was his first thought.

He hadn't thought everything out as well as he should have.

His whole plan so far, revolved around the idea that he didn't want to waste any magic energy, because he could afford to lose as much Ki as he wanted, and it was always a tradeoff between those two.

So instead of intercepting the Saibamen with a simple attack, just strong enough to take the thing out, he had decided to use a large scale attack that conserved every last drop of magic that he had in him.

He made no effort at controlling it, at all.

...

He had basically thrown a ball of Ki at it.

A big ball of Ki.

...Since he knew that the ball would rapidly expand if he wasn't going to manually condense it with his magic, he had to put in a lot of extra Ki to do the job.

He intuitively understood the rate at which a ball containing a certain amount of energy expanded when he wasn't trying to keep it together, so he knew that over the distance to his target, the ball would expand a certain amount.

It would be larger in volume by the time it reached his target, which made the ball weaker overall.

Energy density was what did the most damage to someone, not total energy. The bigger a ball of energy was, the more of it would miss.

So Gohan had had to take that expansion factor into account, and put in a little extra power, so that when the expanded ball hit, it would still be dense enough to finish the job.

...But if he had exerted a little bit of magic instead, he could have made himself look a little weaker.

In fact, if he had used a lot more magic, and had taken advantage of that flap on the saibamen's head he could have implemented that strategy he had thought up during Tien's battle, killing that Saibamen without anyone even noticing how.

In fact, if he had been subtle enough, he could have kept his element of surprise entirely.

...

Instead, he had carved out a massive hole in the ground, completely obliterated the Saibamen, and caused a massive explosion.

There was a sizeable crater in the ground now.

...It had also been a little bit too close of a call.

Yamcha had been very close to the Saibamen he was targeting, so Gohan had had to make sure that most of the energy missed the man.

The man had still been knocked back a bit from the shockwave, but Gohan had been careful enough to ensure that the man wouldn't be injured too much from it.

It was definitely a lot better than being blindsided and killed by a surprise attack though. At least in Gohan's opinion...

It was really just a slap on the wrist to someone of that man's caliber, from what Gohan could tell. But it would have been a much better idea to just take the hit on his magic reserves to be more subtle, instead of becoming the center of attention the way he was now.

...

Gohan still had his hand outstretched, with two of his fingers pointed towards where the Saibamen had been, in a stance not unlike the one Vegeta had used earlier when he had killed the previous Saibamen himself.

...Maybe he had used a little too much energy there.

Yamcha was staring at the ground in front of him in shock, while Krillin and the others were now openly gaping at him.

…

'Uh… surprise," Gohan thought to himself lamely.

* * *

"G-Gohan?"

...Krillen was the one to finally break the silence

Gohan lowered his hand and faced him.

It had been the first time he had been acknowledged at all by a teammate of his. This had been the first time any of his dad's friends had said anything to him.

...He didn't say anything in response, though. Instead, after a moment or two, Gohan turned to face the saiyans to see their reactions.

What was going to happen now? Was the fight about to get serious?

The smaller one, Vegeta, looked curious almost. Curious... and maybe a little surprised?

...

The bald one on the other hand looked apoplectic.

"What!?" He shouted in fury. "Kid, that was a big mistake! How dare you interfere with the fight!"

"Nappa, calm down."

"But he-"

"Nappa!" Vegeta interrupted sharply.

…

"Do you really want to cross me?" He asked.

The smaller saiyan was calm and collected...

Something terrifying to see, in Gohan's opinion.

Considering it was harder to manipulate those who had a firm hold on their emotions, and a lot of Gohan's strategies involved doing just that... Using their own rage and desire for battle as a trap to take them out would be much harder than he previously anticipated.

...This one wouldn't fall for it nearly as easily as the bald one would.

"No, I-"

"Good."

Vegeta turned his attention to Gohan.

"Now, kid. I am a bit surprised at your interference. I didn't think the people on this planet had so little honour. Where's your pride? Why interfere?"

Gohan used an excuse he thought up just before launching his attack.

"I should be asking you that. You're the one who cheated."

Nappa did not take that answer very well at all.

"What!"

"You challenged us to a tournament," Gohan continued. "I don't know anything about where you come from, but tournaments have rules on this planet."

"When a fighter is down for ten seconds, they forfeit the match."

Gohan emphasized his next points.

"I counted to ten. Fight's over."

"Maybe next time you should clarify the rules before starting something like this if my interference surprised you. You challenged us to a knife fight, and brought a gun."

He threw their own words back at them.

"Where's your honour?"

...And that right there, in Gohan's opinion, was the sound of his element of surprise, shattering.

There was no going back.

"Oh no, kid… you did not just say that."

Something twisted in the bald saiyan's face, and Gohan could tell that the saiyan was well past rage, and into that quiet fury that sometimes appears whenever someone is so mad they can hardly see straight.

"Kid... I'm going to rip you in half."

Gohan's reply was immediate.

"Come and try."

If the fight was going to escalate right now, then Gohan would be at an advantage. Vegeta was still underestimating him, and Nappa was so mad that he would fall for every last trick in the book.

Gohan would put him down immediately, along with the rest of the Saibamen by going all out.

He'd probably lose his opportunity to say the things that he wanted to them, but that was just one of his many strategies prepared for this battle. It was not that big of a loss. It probably wouldn't even work, and that strategy was risky, anyway.

Vegeta started laughing.

"Maybe he should go next, Nappa. There's no need to rush things just yet."

"Saibamen!" Nappa growled out, wasting no time. "Kill that runt!"

One of the Saibamen immediately took action and launched himself towards Gohan.

...It fell over dead almost immediately, after seemingly tripping on its own feet. It slid to a halt as blood and steam started leaking out of its eyes and ears.

...

Everyone stared at the corpse in astonishment for a few moments.

Gohan hadn't moved, and the Saibamen hadn't even gotten close.

"What the?" Nappa questioned. "What happened?"

"What do you think happened?" Gohan replied. "He lost."

The fact that the saiyans had missed what Gohan had actually done was very interesting. It was clear to him that these saiyans had very unrefined senses.

...Or at least Nappa did.

"What… what did you do?"

...There was no way that Gohan was going to answer any of the bald saiyan's questions honestly, so he decided to be as vague as possible.

"I took my turn," Gohan stated simply. "Someone else can go next."

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you enjoyed.**

 **\- LeviTamm**


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